


Avengers, Uh, Find A Way

by Spencesttar



Category: Jurassic Park - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anxious Bruce Banner, Bruce Banner Feels, Cap is a Dinosaur, Clint Barton & Natasha Romanov Friendship, Deaf Clint Barton, Dinosaur Attacks, Dinosaurs, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Clint Barton, Hurt Tony Stark, Jurassic Park References, Kid Clint Barton, Kid Natasha Romanov, Lots of cardio, Protective Natasha Romanov, Protective Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-30
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:20:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 24,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26196274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spencesttar/pseuds/Spencesttar
Summary: As lifelong dinosaur enthusiasts, Clint and Steve knew the plot to Jurassic Park like the back of their hands. They just never thought the Avengers would have to re-enact the movie in order to stay alive. It was times like this that Clint really wished he'd been able to convince Natasha to watch the movie with him.ORThere aren't enough Jurassic Park/Avengers crossover fics, and I wanted to write one.
Comments: 17
Kudos: 57





	1. The Strangest Dream

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I think this is one of the best ideas I've ever had. There are not enough Jurassic Park/Avengers fics out there, and I had a friggin' BLAST writing this! A HUGE thank you to finchfiesta for beta-ing this for me. I hope reading this is as enjoyable as it was to write!

Steve was having the strangest dream. He couldn’t remember falling asleep, which was concerning as the last thing he could recall was fighting the Avengers’ latest wannabe arch-nemesis. So either they had won and the post-battle crash had been particularly hard, or he was in some kind of weird fever dream.

Because there was no way he was really crammed in a small plane, ten thousand feet above ground, sitting across from a dinosaur.

The Velociraptor’s beady eyes stared back at Steve, its lips pulled back in a snarl to reveal sharp, serrated teeth. Its head bobbed as it stepped closer, claws tapping against the ground. Its mouth opened, and for a second Steve panicked, anticipating being mauled.

Except no bite came. The jaws opened, and a voice that sounded surprisingly like Bruce’s said his name.

“Steve.”

Steve jolted awake, his eyes quickly searching the small cabin of the helicopter, trying to take in everything at once. Bruce sat on his right, and Tony sat across from him. An old man dressed all in white sat on Bruce’s right, and next to Tony was a balding man in a grey suit.

Steve did a sharp double take. Tony was wearing tight black jeans, a black leather jacket, and a black v-neck shirt whose cut displayed half of Tony’s chest-

And the arc reactor was gone.

“Ah, finally!” the old man said in a clear, Scottish accent. “I thought you would sleep the entire trip. And really, the view is too beautiful to miss!”

“He’s not talking about me, Steve. Although I admit, I look handsome without a hole in my chest,” Tony said, grinning at Steve’s shocked expression over a pair of dark rimmed glasses. “I guess the arc reactor was too out of character.”

“You’ll have to get used to Dr. Stark,” the old man said, dislike evident on his face. “He suffers from a deplorable excess of personality, especially for a mathematician.”

“You’re just angry that I’m going to get your park shut down.”

“Codswallop. Tony, you’ve never been able to sufficiently explain your concerns.”

Tony grinned and let out an unnatural chuckle. He turned to Bruce and said, “I suppose this is the part where I make you blush, Bruce. You’re no Laura Dern, but might I say, the pink button down and khaki shorts are quite the look.”

“I bring scientists. You bring a rockstar,” the old man said to the balding man.

“We all have a role to play here,” the balding man replied.

Steve’s mouth snapped shut. He pinched himself. It had to be another dream.

The old man in white was John Hammond which meant the grey-suited lawyer was Gennaro. Tony was meant to be Malcolm, Bruce was Dr. Sattler, and he himself was Dr. Grant.

His face snapped to the window, watching choppy waves break on a large rock formation as they neared a towering island blanketed with a thick covering of trees and foliage. And this...

Steve could practically hear the music swell.

This had to be…

“There it is,” Hammond said in an awestruck voice.

Jurassic Park.


	2. Welcome to Jurassic Park

Everything down to the details was perfect: the dysfunctional seat belt, the jeeps, the logo hanging from the rear view mirror, the employee in the pink polo shirt who was driving them into the park.

Steve was in shock.

Panic alarms screamed inside of his head. His mind zinged from one thought to the next, trying to remember how they could have possibly ended up in this situation. It had to be the bad guy they were chasing. They hadn’t thought she was much of a threat at the time, but could she have done something to them to make them live through the Jurassic Park movie? Was it a hallucinogen? Some kind of tech? Magic?

“How the hell did we end up in the movie?” Tony said, sparing half a glance at their driver. “Bruce wasn’t even fighting; he was in the damn plane.”

“Did you see her do anything?” Bruce turned around to face them. His hand moved to adjust his glasses, frowning when he realized he wasn’t wearing anything.

“No. She was just talking.”

“Maybe she’s Asgardian?”

“If she was, then Thor would have been fighting with us, not bumming around Asgard.”

“Guys.” A partial memory came to Steve of playing distraction with Tony while Natasha and Clint planned a sneak attack from behind. “Where are Clint and Natasha?”

“Maybe they weren’t affected,” Bruce said hopefully. “They could be trying to find a way to get us out of here.”

“My bet is they’re that freaky pair of Velociraptors,” Tony said. “Don’t tell me that the scene of the Velociraptors taking down the hunter guy doesn’t remind you of them.”

“What?”

“Come on, Bruce. I thought you watched the movie?”

“I saw most of it.”

“Bruce!” Tony looked disappointed. “It’s no Star Wars, but it’s worth watching at least once. You’ve seen it, haven’t you, Cap?”

“Clint and I watch it every couple of months.”

“You’re joking.”

Steve shrugged. He turned toward the fields as the car rounded a bend and slowed to a stop, his heart fluttering in excitement in spite of himself. “Once a dinosaur kid, always a dinosaur kid.”

Steve stumbled out of the car as if mesmerized, drawn closer to the Brachiosaurus. Its leathery brown-grey skin seemed to shine in the afternoon sunlight, long shadows cast by its immense body mass. Its long neck extended gracefully above the trees. Steve could hardly see its head grazing on leaves from the tallest branches. When it moved, the whole ground rumbled.

It was incredible.

And for a minute, Steve forgot that it wasn’t real.

“It’s a dinosaur,” Steve said in disbelief. He pointed to it, turning around to find Bruce staring at it in just as much awe.

Tony watched from the jeep, a look of shock on his face as if he thought any moment he would wake up and return to reality. “It’s real. This isn’t a dream.”

Steve walked closer. He squinted up at the dinosaur, wishing he had a camera so he could take a picture and show it to Clint. “I can’t believe how massive it is.”

“The Brachiosaurus’s neck alone is thirty feet.” Hammond smiled proudly, joining them in admiring the Brachiosaurus.

The Brachiosaurus reared up on its back two feet, plucking foliage from the very top of the tree before dropping back to the ground with a loud bellow.

“How fast are they?” Bruce asked.

“Well, we clocked the T-Rex at 32 miles an hour.”

“T-Rex?” Bruce stuttered. He turned to Hammond with wide eyes.

“Uh-huh.”

“You’ve got a T-Rex,” Steve stated. He found himself going weak at the knees.

Hammond didn’t notice the lack of enthusiasm, happily repeating, “We have a T-Rex.”

Steve stumbled away. He felt dizzy, his brain finally realizing the gravity of their situation unless they found a way out of here. He vaguely heard Bruce telling him to put his head between his knees as he collapsed to the ground, trying to catch his breath. Even the herd of Hadrosauruses moving in the distance wasn’t enough to keep his attention.

“You’re wondering how I did it,” Hammond said, kneeling besides Steve with his hand on Steve’s shoulder. “I’ll show you.”

A shiver ran down Steve’s spine.

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Tony would be the first to admit that he was more of a tech person than an animal person. Blame it on being bitten by one of his father’s flamingoes at a young age, but large things with sharp teeth or beaks that decided to attack on their own volition made him uncomfortable.

Very large things with very sharp teeth damn near terrified him when he wasn’t in his Iron Man suit.

He had watched Jurassic Park with Jarvis when he was a young boy and Jarvis was human, and the movie had given him nightmares. He would dream about Velociraptors sneaking into his room at night, the door bursting open, and their hot breath breathing down his neck before they went in for the kill. Many times, he had woken up in a cold sweat, refusing to turn his head or open his eyes because he was convinced there was a raptor just waiting in the shadows for their opportunity.

Give him a robot invasion movie any day. Dinosaurs were creepy.

But Tony had grown out of that fear. Catch him in the right mood, and he’d sit down and watch Jurassic Park with anyone, eager to impress with his knowledge of the underlying mechanics that went into making the T-Rex work.

Of course, that was when dinosaurs were extinct and his likelihood of meeting one was sitting at a comfortable zero percent. Having now seen one up close and personal, he’d have to find his childhood psychologist and sue him for saying dinosaurs were an irrational fear.

Thank Spielberg, he was playing the part of Ian Malcolm and not one of the paleontologists. Sure, there was the unfortunate moment where Malcolm tried to lure the T-Rex away with another flare and failed because he was also moving. Not that Tony could blame the T-Rex, Jeff Goldblum was by far more interesting than the flare. But Tony knew the outcome. He knew it would be better if he kept his ass parked in the car, so he could play the system and not make the same mistake.

He wouldn’t even have to touch a dinosaur if he didn’t want to do it. And as far as he could remember, Malcolm never even encountered the Velociraptors.

“Why don’t you all sit down?” Hammond said, ushering them into a row of movie theater seats.

Tony tuned out Mr. DNA’s spiel on ‘Dino DNA’, speaking to the others quietly enough that their host wouldn’t hear.

“They’re real.” Might as well start with the obvious, Tony decided. “How are we supposed to free ourselves if we’re fighting off dinosaurs the entire time.”

“Maybe we have to stop Nedry? Or skip the tour and leave on the boat?” Steve suggested.

“Who is Nedry? Have we met him already?” Bruce asked.

Tony wracked his brain for an answer, but Steve beat him to the punch.

“He’s the computer guy. He shuts down the park’s security systems, giving the dinosaurs a chance to break free.”

“I never thought the day would come when Steve Rogers was more equipped with movie knowledge than me.” Tony startled as the bar in front of him slid down to lock him in place as the floor started to move, then added, “You’re a literal dinosaur, Cap.”

Steve ignored him, testing the bars in front of him as the ride passed a window revealing a dozen people in white jumpsuits working. “I don’t know about you guys, but anyone else getting a bad feeling that the only way out of this movie is through it?”

“I was afraid you would say that,” Bruce sighed.

“Can you stop this thing?” Steve asked. He turned to face Hammond, trying again to move the bars.

“I’m sorry. It’s kind of a ride.”

Some kind of instinct took over, and Tony realized they would all have to push the bar up together. He counted them down, and with a solid push, the bars released them.

They moved single file out of line, and realizing they weren’t going to return to their seats, Hammond led them into one of the labs. Bruce was momentarily distracted by a voice over the PA system announcing the leaving time of a boat. He turned to Tony with a confused look, a question clearly on the tip of his tongue before he shrugged it off and followed close behind Steve. Tony hung back when he realized they were heading toward the incubator.

As one of the eggs started to move, Steve leaned in excitedly.

“Perfect timing,” a man with a name tag identifying him as Dr. Wu said. “I’d hoped they’d hatch before I had to go to the boat.”

A small crack appeared in the egg, a small pink nose pushing through. A yellow eye glared out, tiny claws scrabbling weakly against the egg shell. Against his better judgement, Tony leaned in to take a closer look at the baby Velociraptor.

“Population control is one of our security precautions. There is no unauthorized breeding in Jurassic Park.” Dr. Wu paused as if waiting for a reply then continued. “All the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park are female. We’ve engineered them that way.”

Trying to distract himself from the baby Velociraptor, Tony circled the table and examined the robot caring for the eggs. He wanted to shake some sense into Steve when the man put on a pair of gloves and actually held the creature in his hands.

“It’s not going to work.” Tony sat down heavily at a desk. “You can’t control them. You’ve changed the genetic structure of these animals, evolved them beyond what they once were, and even if you hadn’t, you can’t determine what they will and will not do once they have been released from your sterile lab into a faux-natural environment.”

“You’re implying that a group composed of entirely female animals will…breed?” Dr. Wu asked.

Tony caught Steve’s eye and smirked. He absently rubbed at the space his arc reactor used to occupy. “No. I’m saying that life, uh, finds a way.”

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Seeing the Velociraptors filled Steve with equal parts terror and awe. He could hear their growls and chirps from inside the heavily reinforced paddock well before they were in viewing distance. As the bull was lowered into the cage for feeding time, the leaves whipping around in a frenzy, Steve’s stomach churned.

When Muldoon appeared, Steve couldn’t help looking for something that would make the man seem less human. Muldoon didn’t know that the Velociraptors he was describing with such horror and respect would be free by sundown. He didn’t know that by this time tomorrow, they would ambush him and tear him apart, still alive and screaming.

But Steve did.

And there was nothing Steve could do.

Heading back to the visitor’s center for lunch, Steve was almost relieved to say goodbye to Muldoon. He tuned out for much of the conversation, waiting anxiously for Hammond to announce that their company had arrived.

“You four are going to have a spot of company out in the park,” Hammond said, leading them to the visitor center’s main entrance. “Spend a little time with our target audience. Kids!”

“No way,” Tony whispered, a gleeful grin on his face. “They’re so tiny!”

Steve followed his gaze. Where Lex and Tim should have been, were instead a twelve-year-old girl with red hair pulled back into a braid and a nine-year-old boy with sandy blond hair. The two children were surveying the room from near the door, a look of suspicion on the girl’s face, and one of absolute delight on the boy’s.

“Is that any way to greet your grandpa?” Hammond said. He laughed and continued down the stairs. “Natasha! Clint! Come and give your grandpa a hug!”


	3. Tykes and Trikes

“Wake up.”

Clint startled awake, his movement limited by the large straps across his chest and waist. He struggled against his restraint, stilling when he realized several things in quick succession.

He was sitting in a jeep, and his restraint was a seat belt.

There was a young girl with bright red hair sitting next to him.

Said young girl was most definitely Natasha if the murderous look in her eye was anything to go by.

And she was at least a foot taller than he was.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Watch your language, Agent Barton.” Their driver, a woman in a pink polo shirt, frowned at him through the rear-view mirror. “There’s no need to be rude.”

“Of course. You’ve kidnapped us and turned us into children, but excuse my  _ shitty  _ language!” Clint spat, futilely trying to unbuckle himself. “What in the goddamn hell is going on, please!”

Natasha smirked, somehow managing to look even more dangerous.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “I’m going to offer you and Agent Romanoff information I didn’t offer the others. Don’t make me change my mind.”

Clint jerked against the stupid seat belt again, this time on principle, and huffed before falling still.

“You’ve been given a part. Play it.” She kept her eyes fixed on the road. “You won’t like what happens if you stray too far from the story.”

“I love cryptic advice, don’t you, Clint?” Natasha’s foot moved toward the back of the woman’s seat, but was stopped by some kind of invisible barrier. Her fingers moved to her own seat belt release button and couldn’t budge it.

“Why are you doing this?”

“To keep you busy and give us time to get away.” The driver’s hands tensed on the wheel, and for the first time, Clint saw that she was nervous.

Clint and Natasha shared a look.

“Who are you working with?” Natasha’s question was sharp and demanding, a stark contrast to her young face. “How many people are there?”

“No one. It’s just me.”

“You didn’t say ‘me’, you said ‘us’. Who are you working with? Give us their names.”

With a nervous twitch, the driver’s hands clenched again, and the jeep jostled off the road before she corrected the car. “There’s nobody else.” 

“Liar.”

“Please, tell us something. We’re not the bad guys,” Clint wheedled, soft and sympathetic where Natasha was hard. “You’ve turned us into preteens, we can’t escape, and I can barely see out the window. All things considered, this situation has me feeling pretty anxious. We just want to understand so we can help.”

The driver was quiet. She tried to keep her eyes fixed firmly on the road, but every now and then they would dart toward the mirror and flick away.

Natasha threw an arm over Clint’s tiny shoulders, giving him a brief pointed look.

Clint sighed and took his cue. Just as their driver glanced in the mirror again, he gave a pathetic sniff and rubbed at his eyes.

“My sister. She’s not evil. She’s just sick. She doesn’t realize what she’s doing.”

Bingo.

“She hurt people. She tried to destroy the city,” Natasha said bluntly. but without the sharp tone.

“But she didn’t kill anyone! She doesn’t understand what she’s doing. When she’s on her meds, she knows not to use her powers, but she stopped taking them. I can help her get better, and this won’t happen again.”

“What if it does, though?” Clint leaned forward as much as he could, all big blue eyes and an earnest puppy-dog expression. “My brother Barney’s done things like her. And I thought I could convince him to do the right thing, but I couldn’t. People got hurt. I can tell you don’t want people to get hurt, right?”

The woman’s eyes darted to the mirror and she nodded.

“You can’t watch her all the time. That’s too much pressure.”

“She’ll resent you,” Natasha added. “You’ll lose her one way or the other.”

“If I let you go, you’ll lock her up. They won’t let me see her.”

“We’ll get her the help she needs. Think of it more like rehabilitation. If you run away and this happens again, it’ll be so much worse for her. And you’ll be labelled an accomplice. You can’t help her if you’re in trouble with her,” Clint said.

There was a second where Clint thought they had her convinced.

Then the driver’s hands tightened on the wheel and she shook her head.

“No. We’ll disappear and it’ll all be fine.” She gave them a guilty look in the mirror and turned the jeep onto a dirt road. “Nobody has to get hurt. If you play along, you’ll all make it out of here okay. You’ll never see us again.”

Natasha removed her arm and Clint sighed.

“And we’re kids because?”

“You’re less of a threat this way.” The jeep stopped. “The others will be too busy worrying about you to look for a way out. This should slow you all down.”

“That’s a bold assumption to make.” 

Their driver shivered like some kind of mirage, and then she was smiling back at them, all signs of distress gone. Her voice was peppy as she said, “Alright kids, we’re here! You must be so excited to be some of the first people to see the park. Your grandpa can’t wait to show you around!”

She stepped out of the jeep and went to open Clint’s door, giving him a concerned look when he didn’t move. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Do you need a hand with your seat belt?”

Natasha snickered, catching onto the game quicker than Clint, and she unlatched both of their belts. She gave Clint a shove forward and followed after him. “No Ma’am, he’s just overstimulated.”

The woman walked them up to a large building, opened the door, and gestured for them to walk inside. The second they rounded the corner and a Scottish accent shouted ‘kids!’, Clint knew where they were.

Or more specifically, who they were.

The large dinosaur skeletons taking up much of the lobby caught his attention first. His eyes traveled upward behind them toward the red banner reading ‘When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth’. A thrill of excitement ran through him.

“Is that any way to greet your grandpa?” Clint gaped as John Hammond walked down the stairs toward them. The old man smiled, his arms open wide. “Natasha! Clint! Come give your grandpa a hug!”

“Nat, we’re in Jurassic Park!” Clint’s eyes were shining, and he gave her a toothy grin. “We’re going to see dinosaurs!”

“Focus, Clint. We’ve got to find a way out of here.”

She nudged Clint to get him walking, and Clint swore she shoved him when they got within touching distance of Hammond so he would get sucked into the man’s hug first.

“I missed you both so much,” Hammond said. “How was your helicopter ride?”

“It was so much fun!” Natasha lied. She gave Hammond a big smile and somehow managed to pull Clint back to her side. “We loved it! Didn’t we, Clint?”

Not to be judgemental, but Clint thought she was being a little heavy-handed with the protectiveness.

He nodded along anyway.

As Hammond stepped aside, Clint and Natasha found themselves face to face with the other Avengers. Clint would have laughed at their new appearances if he hadn’t already realized that his and Natasha’s were so much worse.

“Let me introduce you to our guests! This is Dr. Stark and Mr. Gennaro. Dr. Banner is a paleobotanist. and Clint, you should recognize Dr. Rogers from your book!” Hammond squeezed Clint’s shoulder affectionately and turned to Steve. “I dare say Clint may be your biggest fan, Dr. Rogers. He talks about your book all the time and wants to be just like you when he grows up.”

Tony looked like Christmas had come early. He had a large grin on his face, and his shoulders shook with the strain of suppressing his laughter. Steve, on the other hand, had turned an impressive shade of red.

“Don’t be shy, go ahead and introduce yourselves! Mr. Gennaro, why don’t you come with me to check on the cars?”

As Hammond and Gennaro moved away, Tony cracked. He let out a laugh and knelt down in front of Clint and Natasha. “I thought you two would end up as a couple of Velociraptors, but this is so much better. You two as children is hilariously adorable.” Tony pointed to Clint’s ears. “Love the dinosaur hearing aids, Pipsqueak. I can see why you were allowed to keep them.”

“Watch it, Tony. I still remember how to-“

Clint would have to speculate exactly what Natasha said as he had pulled out his hearing aids to look at them. Although, he would guess by Tony’s face and the way his smile dropped that she had threatened him with something truly awful. His attention was drawn to the hearing aids. Purple like his own, but decorated with little dinosaur stickers. The left hearing aid had a blue Stegosaurus tube trinket while the right had a green T-Rex.

When he was a deaf kid the first time around, he would have loved hearing aids like this.

He put them back in as Natasha explained what they’d learned.

“It’s a bluff. People don’t tell you not to look for loopholes if there aren’t any,” Tony said. “They’re buying time.”

“Maybe.” Steve looked pensive. “We don’t have a lot of time to test your theory, Tony. Our best option may just be to get through this as quickly as possible and pick up their trail.”

“I don’t know the movie,” Bruce said nervously. “How am I supposed to play along when I don’t know what I’m supposed to do?”

“The cars are ready to go,” Hammond interrupted, appearing near the door. “Come on, kids. Doctors, I daresay you won’t want to miss the tour.”

“If we can change the story, then we should be able to skip the tour,” Clint said to Steve. “If not, you prepare Bruce and Tony for what happens, and I’ll tell Natasha.”

“Good idea.” Steve led the way down the stairs. They exited the building and joined Hammond, Steve giving the sky a pointed look before saying, “Excuse me, Mr. Hammond, but did I hear that a storm is headed our way? Wouldn’t it be better to postpone the tour until tomorrow? I can’t imagine the dinosaurs will be all that active if it’s raining.”

“Nonsense, Dr. Rogers, there’s nothing to worry about. You’ll be done with the tour and back in bed well before the storm hits.”

“I have to agree with Steve here, John. It seems reckless to go on the tour if there’s a bad storm coming,” Tony argued. “What if the cars break down?”

“Impossible. They are top of the line. We spared no expense.” Hammond sighed. “I suppose we can arrange for you to take a tour tomorrow, but I won’t deny my grandchildren the treat of going on the tour today. Mr. Gennaro, would you accompany my grandchildren in the park?”

The argument on Clint’s lips that he would rather go when the others went died the second Hammond placed a hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t speak or muster up the energy to move away or break out of Hammond’s grip as Clint was ushered toward the car. His body was obeying commands he hadn’t given it.

On Hammond’s other side, Natasha seemed to be in a similar situation based on the stiff, stormy look on her face.

It was all Clint could do to give Steve a desperate look, asking him to do something. He could only imagine what would happen to them with Gennaro as their sole escort.

“You’re probably right,” Steve said. He stepped toward the other car and gestured for Tony and Bruce to follow. “We’re overreacting. We’ll join the tour and save you the trouble of having to reschedule ours.”

“Excellent!” Hammond clapped his hands together and led them towards the cars. “Get in, get in. It’s all state of the art. Fully electric cars, non-polluting of course, with interactive touch screens. Not to mention, it’s all narrated by Richard Kiley. We spared no expense.”

Clint regained control of his body, a shiver racing down his spine. He felt nauseous. The last time he had lost control of himself like that was when Loki had brainwashed him. Clint numbly followed Natasha into one of the cars, carefully avoiding looking at his reflection.

“Clint, tell me what happens next,” Natasha whispered urgently.

Clint pushed his thoughts aside and focused on Natasha. “You’d know if you had watched the movie with me one of the twenty times I asked.”

Natasha glowered. “I’ll watch it with you when we get out of this.”

“Deal.” Clint moved to sit right next to Natasha, leaning in conspiratorially. “The first thing to know is that we don’t actually see any dinosaurs on the tour. We’ve got to follow Steve when he goes AWOL, and  _ that’s _ when the real adventure begins.”

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Bruce was starting to panic.

Being trapped inside of a movie with no clear way out was bad. Listening to Steve tell him that Bruce was going to be running from highly intelligent dinosaurs for the next two days was significantly worse. But the part that absolutely terrified him was that the familiar, unnerving grumble from the Hulk was glaringly absent.

Which likely meant the Big Guy wasn’t going to be making an appearance if anything went off script and the dinosaurs decided he was food. And if there was ever a time where Bruce would actually appreciate being a large angry monster, it was when he was going into a situation where there were larger, hangry monsters.

“Bruce, are you paying attention? Steve jumped out of the car. We have to follow him.”

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and nodded. “Yeah. Sorry, Tony, I lost focus for a minute.”

Tony gave him a shrewd look and clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Stick to the plan, Bruce. We all make it out of here alive.”

Tony hopped out of the car and Bruce followed behind him. Clint and Natasha were quick to catch up. They walked through the tall grass toward a jeep in the distance, and it was only when they got closer that Bruce realized why it was sitting in the middle of the field.

Bruce stopped short, staring at the sedated Triceratops.

She was breathing deeply, rib cage rising and falling in a slow, heavy rhythm. Her eyelids drooped, her mouth hung slightly open, and every now and then she would lethargically move one of her legs which were as thick as his entire body.

Bruce vaguely heard the veterinarian say it was okay to touch the Triceratops before Steve reached out. Steve ran a hand over the rough skin of her crest with a mesmerized look on his face. He quickly gestured for the others to come closer.

Clint was the first to respond, darting around them to stop just short of the Triceratops. He reached out slowly and pet her head, wearing the largest smile Bruce had ever seen from Clint.

As Bruce moved to get a better look at the dinosaur, Steve turned to him and smiled. “Triceratops were always my favorite when I was a kid,” Steve said. “And I thought the fossils were impressive. She’s beautiful.”

“What’s wrong with her?” Bruce asked.

“Imbalance, disorientation, labored breathing,” the veterinarian answered. “It seems to happen about every six weeks or so.”

“Strange.” Bruce’s eyes moved from the vesicles on her tongue to her dilated pupils. “Some kind of toxicity?”

“There’s West Indian Lilac growing in their fields, but the Trikes don’t seem to eat them.”

“Are you sure about that?” Bruce muttered.

“You could always check their droppings.” Tony smirked and gestured behind him to a large pile of feces. “That is one big pile of shit if you ask me. You might find something enlightening in it.”

“I’m not that kind of doctor, Tony.”

Thunder cracked in the distance, the wind picking up around them. Bruce saw Gennaro jump at the loud noise and look anxiously back toward the cars.

“Doctors, if you please, I have to insist that we get moving,” Gennaro said.

Bruce swallowed convulsively, staring at the Triceratops. This was his cue to separate from the group, but getting the words out was harder than he anticipated.

Tony caught Bruce’s eye and nodded. “It’s better than the T-Rex.”

He wasn’t wrong, Bruce thought.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to stay with Doctor Harding and finish up with the Triceratops,” Bruce said. “I can meet you guys back at the visitor’s center.”

“You sure?” Steve asked.

Not at all.

“Yeah,” Bruce said, wringing his hands together before he gestured toward their cars. “Go ahead. I’ll catch up later.”

Gennaro ushered Clint and Natasha away, and Steve followed close behind.

Tony gave Bruce one final pat on the shoulder, and then he too was gone.

Bruce was on his own.


	4. Where's the Goat?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the fantastic Finch Fiesta for beta-ing for me!

As expected, the jeep stalled out in front of the Tyrannosaurus paddock. The storm began to pick up speed, rain pounding on the roof of the car. Lightning flashed sporadically, intercut with the loudly approaching peal of thunder. The car became stuffier as they waited.

It was a relief when the storm began to subside, and Steve opened the door to check in on them. The serious expression on his face while he talked to Gennaro turned guilty when he looked back at Clint and Natasha. He seemed twitchy, torn between leaving them behind and taking them with him.

Clint pushed aside his own unease and grinned reassuringly. “We’re fine, Steve. It’ll be fun!”

Beside him, Natasha projected a calm and ready face. Both facades dropped the moment Steve closed the door.

Gennaro was oblivious to their change, too busy watching rain splatter on the windshield.

Riffling through a box under the seat for night-vision goggles, Clint saw Gennaro’s gaze switch to him. 

“Don’t do that,” Gennaro objected when Clint pulled out the goggles. “Are they heavy?”

“Yeah?” Clint said.

“Then they’re expensive,” Gennaro said. “Put them back.”

“I’m being careful,” Clint shot back.

The lawyer seemed to decide it wasn’t worth the trouble to play disciplinarian, instead leaning back in his seat and turning his uninterested gaze toward the window.

Clint flipped on the goggles and crawled into the back of the jeep, watching the Tyrannosaur Paddock closely for any signs of movement. His body was on high alert for any creak in the branches or any rumble that wasn’t thunder. Natasha stared intensely out the window, radiating a nervous energy. Not for the first time, Clint really wished he had been able to convince her to watch the movie.

Because there’s no easy way to comfort your friend when you both know you’re about to be attacked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

They felt the tremors first. The vibrations were so slight, they seemed to resonate at a subconscious frequency within the body, a sense of impending panic raised without any visible danger. Small ripples radiating across the surface of a cup of water felt like dire warning. By the time they could hear the deep plodding sound of large feet, they were already on edge.

“Maybe it’s just the power trying to turn back on,” Gennaro said. He turned toward the Tyrannosaur Paddock, his eyes scanning the treeline closely.

Quick as he could, Clint replaced the goggles and focused on the goat. But it had already disappeared. The chain holding it in place swung wildly from side to side.

“It’s gone,” Natasha whispered.

The goat’s leg thumped onto the roof of the car, and they jumped.

The T-Rex had finally arrived.

“Oh, Jesus.” Gennaro hyperventilated, scrambling for the door.

“Gennaro, wait-“ Clint started.

Gennaro didn’t listen. He was already sprinting through the rain toward the restrooms. Clint debated closing the door then and there. Except he was frozen in place by the image of the massive creature ripping through the once electrified fences like they were nothing more than cobwebs.

Clint clambered over to Natasha, grabbing her hands as she dug through the supplies box for a flashlight. “No, stop! Its vision is based on movement, Nat. We’ve gotta stay still. Don’t move!”

Natasha listened, and they both turned to watch the T-Rex creep out into the middle of the road between the two cars. The T-Rex roared loud and gratingly, its massive, scaly head swinging back and forth.

Hope fluttered in Clint’s chest. Without the light to draw it closer, maybe the T-Rex would just walk away into the woods.

Without warning, the car’s headlights started to flicker on and off rapidly. The emergency lights joined in and sent a red glow flashing against the back of the car.

“What’s happening?” Natasha whispered tersely.

“I don’t know, this isn’t supposed to happen!” Clint scurried into the front seat, jamming his hand against the emergency light button and frantically hitting every button. “It’s not working!”

Everything suddenly stopped. Clint looked to his left and saw the T-Rex looming above them. Its teeth were sharp, massive points, its head nearly larger than the car. Unable to stop himself, Clint reached out as slowly as he dared and pulled the door closed with a soft thump.

The T-Rex snarled, its growl lingering in the air. Hot breath fogged up the window as it lowered its gigantic head and stared at them with a shrewd yellow eye.

Clint and Natasha shared a look.

The T-Rex raised its head and let out a deafening roar that sent both of them instinctively scrambling to the opposite side of the car moments before the jeep tilted unsteadily on two wheels and came crashing down. When it settled, Clint threw himself next to Natasha.They looked up through the sunroof and immediately cowered.

The T-Rex attacked. 

Its jaws dislodged the glass panel above Clint and Natasha, and they barely managed to throw up their arms and legs, desperately trying to hold the panel in place. Teeth scraped against the glass, bloody saliva dripping down onto the surface. The T-Rex tried to push the glass aside ineffectively, and it let out a loud, aggravated roar.

Rationally speaking, as someone who had seen Jurassic Park a hundred times, Clint knew they would be fine.

Realistically, as a defenseless child currently being attacked by a ferocious T-Rex, Clint was freaking terrified. His heart was racing, his pupils dilated, and he couldn’t have prevented himself from screaming if he’d tried. Natasha was screaming just as loud as he was, if not louder.

She’d always had a weak spot for monster movies.

But this didn’t feel fake.

Not by a long shot.

They didn’t have any weapons. They were too small to put up any kind of a fight. And the only thing between them and the T-Rex was a piece of glass that was steadily breaking away.

The T-Rex nudged the car sharply and it flipped upside down.

Clint and Natasha scurried to hide themselves between the seats.

A massive foot stomped on the underside of the jeep, crushing it. The steel frame was unable to withstand the weight, and it sank as the T-Rex bit into a tire and fought to tug it away. Mud flooded into the jeep. Clint and Natasha were hardly able to move as they were swallowed up by the soft ground. Clint struggled to free his pinned leg, and Natasha grabbed Clint’s arm tightly.

Shouldn’t the T-Rex be moving away from them by now, Clint thought. What if they had tried to change the story too much? Maybe this was their new ending: crushed under a dinosaur and drowned in mud.

Or what if Steve forgot that he was supposed to help them?

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

“Remember to keep still. Its vision’s based on movement.”

Tony didn’t need the reminder. He was frozen in place from the moment the T-Rex appeared, every muscle in his body tensed. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end. His skin jittered as if the lightning had found a way into his body and was surging from one nerve to the next.

“What are they doing?” Tony asked as the lights to the jeep started flashing, and the dinosaur honed in on the movement. He wiped away the fog that was forming on the windshield, his mouth falling open in shock.

“That’s not them.”

They watched in horror as the T-Rex attacked the jeep. Tony felt his heart rate spike as the glass gave way and the T-Rex’s teeth were literal inches away from his teammates. Clint and Natasha’s screams were lost under the dinosaur’s roar as it tried and succeeded in tipping the jeep upside down.

Tony had seen Natasha take a bullet without uttering a single sound. He’d seen Clint standing with a knife still stuck in his leg and laughing. Clint and Natasha screaming wasn’t ever a sound Tony wanted to hear.

It felt like an eternity passed before Steve started rummaging around in the backseat and pulled out an emergency flare. Steve fumbled for the door handle and cast Tony a wide-eyed stare. “Stay in the car!” Steve ordered.

Steve darted into the road and yelled to get the dinosaur’s attention. He stopped and waved the flare above his head, the T-Rex’s head following it with single minded intensity. Steve launched the flare over the wall into the T-Rex enclosure.

It took two steps toward the flare… then stopped.

It turned a mean, yellow eye toward Tony, something uncanny in its gaze. Seconds passed under its expectant gaze. Neither Steve nor Tony moved, and the massive creature roared angrily then charged the overturned jeep.

It was the nail in the coffin as far as Tony was concerned. There was no way out.

He snatched another flare from the box, almost slipping in the mud in his haste to get out of the car. The flare was surprisingly hot in his hand as he lit it and held it above his head, waving it frantically from side to side.

“Tony, freeze!”

Tony ignored Steve. “Hey! C’mon you dysfunctional animatronic, follow me!”

Its head swiveled around and let out a roar, ground shaking as it started to chase him.

“Tony!”

“Get them out of here, Steve!” Tony ran faster than he had ever ran before, throwing the flare aside without a second though.

The bathroom came in view. Hot breath hit Tony’s back, and Tony waited for the inevitable moment where he would go flying through the air.

It was surreal.

One moment he was on the ground; the next, he was straddling the T-Rex’s muzzle. They broke through the thin bathroom walls, and with a toss of its head, Tony was falling. He landed hard, pain piercing his leg, and the palm thatching roof collapsed over him.

His last thought as he slipped into unconsciousness, Gennaro’s scream echoing in his ears, was that it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be.

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

As soon as the T-Rex was past him, Steve sprinted for the jeep. He slid to his knees in front of it, and breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Clint and Natasha staring back at him.

“Come on. I’ve gotcha,” Steve said. He grabbed Natasha’s hand and started pulling her out, helping her maneuver through the narrow gap of what used to be the window. When she was free, Steve ducked to look back inside the car. “Clint?”

“I’m stuck,” Clint said, trying to pull himself free for emphasis. “Just go, I’ll be fine!”

Natasha’s hand grabbed painfully onto Steve, and Steve turned to find the T-Rex had returned. Steve pulled Natasha toward him, holding her tight against him. “Don’t move,” he whispered. “It can’t see us if we don’t move.”

A massive foot sank into the mud in front of them. The T-Rex’s head ducked down; its teeth too close for comfort. It sniffed, hot breath blowing over them and knocking the hat off Steve’s head.

As if angry it couldn’t see them, the T-Rex’s nose pushed against the side of the car. The force of it shoved Steve and Natasha forward, and they scrambled to keep their footing. They found themselves trapped between the enclosure wall and the car, the T-Rex guarding their only escape routes.

Except, the T-Rex was more interested in the car and Clint. It sniffed the crumpled window and pushed the car from side to side. Steve pulled Natasha out of the way onto the enclosure wall.

“Clint!” Natasha yelled.

Steve pulled her back and wrapped her arm around his neck, holding them firmly in place. “Nat, we’ve got to go!”

Hoisting her onto his back, he grabbed one of the thick cables and started to climb down the inside of the enclosure wall. A solid, bone-breaking one-hundred-foot drop below them.

The jeep’s headlights cut ominously through the dark as it moved closer and closer to the edge. Steve searched for the second cable, right where he knew it would be, and started walking them side to side. “Grab the line!” he yelled to Natasha.

She reached out, fingertips only grazing the wall. A second try and she touched the line but couldn’t grab it.

The jeep lurched above them. Headlights burned into their retinas as the jeep tipped precariously forward.

Natasha grabbed the line just in time. She tugged, and they felt air rush past them. The jeep missed them by inches before crashing into the trees below, tearing through several layers of branches then stopping.

“Clint!” Natasha yelled again. Her head fell onto Steve’s shoulder and she shuddered as the T-Rex roared above them, and Steve lowered them to the ground.

Natasha climbed off his back and immediately started scanning the trees. She found the jeep lodged vertically in the tree with the headlights facing the ground and called desperately out to Clint, clearly unhappy when she didn’t hear any reply. The mud on her hands and feet thwarted her attempts to climb the tree herself, rough bark leaving scratches on her skin. Steve caught her and held her shoulders with his hands to steady her, a little startled by the wild intensity on her face.

“Natasha, stop! Clint’s okay!” Steve said. “He told you what happens, right?”

Natasha didn’t say anything, but her shoulder relaxed and she nodded curtly.

“Then you know I get him out of the tree. It won’t be simple, but we’ll be fine.” Steve looked up at the tree and steeled himself. “We’ll be back before you know it. Okay?”

Natasha nodded and moved out of the way, cleaning herself off with water streaming from one of the large pipes nearby. Steve started climbing the branches, trying to map how he was going to get out of the tree at the same time. He called out to Clint a couple times, too, not getting any more of a response than Natasha did. He tamped down the feeling of unease, reminding himself that Tim was fine in the movie.

Steve smiled in relief when he reached the jeep and saw Clint. The jeep door creaked as Steve opened it and stepped onto it. “Hey, Clint. You okay? Can you hear me?”

“Yeah.” Clint swallowed, wiped a hand over his mouth, and stared down into the seat well. “Sorry. I would have replied but I was busy doing something else.”

“Oh,” Steve said, catching on. “It’s okay. I won’t tell Natasha.”

“Is she okay?”

“Yeah, she’s fine.” Steve held a hand out to Clint, careful not to touch the steering wheel. “Maybe a little worried that you weren’t answering her. Why don’t we get out of the tree so she can see I wasn’t lying about you being okay.”

Clint eyed the steering wheel cautiously. “I don’t suppose it matters if you touch the steering wheel. The jeep’s going to fall on us, right?”

Steve sighed. “I would guess so.”

“Great.”

Clint grabbed Steve’s hand and carefully made his way across the gap. Steve pulled him out when he was close and the two started to climb down the branches, pausing briefly underneath the jeep.

“You ready?” Steve asked.

The branches creaked warningly above them.

“I was raised in a circus, Steve. This is nothing.” Clint had started climbing, moving with surprising grace from one tree branch to the next. “Try and keep up.”

Steve had started his descent as the jeep snapped through the first few branches. Even with the advantage of having scouted the tree beforehand, Steve felt as if he was barely managing to keep ahead of the vehicle as it chased them down the tree. Clint had reached the ground well ahead of Steve, but Steve had only moments after hitting dirt to grab Clint and dive forward so when the jeep fell and landed upside down, they would slip through the shattered roof and end up back in the jeep unharmed.

“We’re back in the jeep,” Clint said, freeing himself from Steve and moving toward the open door. “That was rather anticlimactic if you ask me.”

Steve sighed and dropped his head against the seat, breathing heavily. “Speak for yourself.”

When Steve made his way out of the vehicle, Natasha joined them. She examined a protesting Clint for wounds, and only seemed satisfied after she finished.

“Come on,” Steve said. “Let’s go find shelter for the night.”

They walked for several minutes before Steve directed Clint and Natasha toward the tree they would be sleeping in that night. To say both of them had been through hell was an understatement.

Natasha was edgy. Unusual for her as she wasn’t even trying to hide it. Her eyes darted around the forest, scanning it for any threats as they heard the T-Rex roar in the distance. Her hands intermittently coiled into fists; shoulders tensed as if ready to fight.

Clint, on the other hand, already seemed to be coming down from his adrenaline spike. Maybe because he knew the worst was over for the night. He dragged his feet, almost tripping twice. When they reached the tree, he stared up at it and let out a heavy sigh.

“You okay, Clint?” Steve glanced at Natasha who spared no time waiting to climb the tree. “If you want, I can carry y-“

“No. I’m fine.”

Clint rallied and started to climb, Steve close behind him just in case he slipped or fell. He kept part of his attention on Natasha as well, but she had made it to the top in record time, her eyes shining down through the dimming light. She reached out a hand as Clint neared her and helped pull him up.

Steve arrived next to them and was immediately met with a smack to his arm.

“Look, Steve!” Clint pointed toward the skyline, a lazy smile on his face. “Brachiosauruses.”

The post-thunderstorm sky had softened into a light shade of coral as the sun began to set, and a hazy fog hovered above the trees. Several Brachiosauruses had their necks raised, breaking up the skyline. The dinosaurs called to each other, their deep, bellowing voices like a melodic song.

Even Natasha seemed entranced by them, Steve thought.

Clint smacked Steve again, looking up at him with a hopeful expression. “Can you make the noise, Steve?”

Steve nodded and moved into a better position. As he moved his hands up to his mouth and attempted to copy the Brachiosauruses call, he tried to erase the uneasy feeling that he shouldn’t be able to read Natasha and Clint’s expressions this well.

Almost as soon as the sound left his mouth, two more Brachiosauruses raised their heads above the trees. They were so close, Steve could see their eyes and the details in their faces when the Brachiosauruses turned to look at them.

“Don’t call them over here,” Natasha shushed.

“It’s okay. Nothing else is going to hurt us tonight.”

“They’re herbivores, Tasha.” Clint yawned and slumped against the tree branch in front of him, blinking slowly. “Nothin’ to worry about.”

Steve moved to the trunk of the tree and sat down with his back against one of the large branches, thankful for the relatively large space to sit. He shifted and winced. Reaching into one of his pockets, Steve pulled out a large raptor claw.

Natasha took a seat next to him, leaning quietly against his side. She kept her intense stare fixed on the claw until, realizing what she wanted, Steve handed it over.

She turned it over twice in her hand, checked to see how sharp it was, then put it in her own pocket.

Steve’s arm wavered above her before he dropped it around her shoulder, a little surprised when she leaned into him more.

“Are you okay?” Steve asked Natasha in a hushed voice. “I’ve never heard you scream like that before.”

“I’ve never woken up as a weaponless twelve-year-old and been attacked by a Tyrannosaurus Rex before.” Natasha’s elbow dug into his side intentionally as she made herself more comfortable. “You might be used to dinosaur attacks since you’re a dinosaur yourself, but I am not.”

“Why does everyone make that joke?” Steve muttered.

Clint chuckled, listing sideways against the branch.

“It doesn’t help when you’re also stuck watching your partner who’s been turned into a six-year-old.”

“I’m older than six. ‘M at least nine,” Clint mumbled. He shifted again; one leg dangling off the edge of the tree.

Natasha stiffened.

“Why don’t you join us over here, Clint?” Steve gave Natasha a reassuring squeeze. “It’s got to be more comfortable than the branch.”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? There’s plenty of space.”

“I’m good.”

“Okay, but-“

Natasha’s elbow dug into Steve’s side again.

“Hey!”

She grabbed Clint under the arms, hauled him backwards towards their impromptu nest, and dumped him on Steve’s lap. While Steve hurried to catch Clint, and Clint grumbled at Natasha for disturbing him, Natasha resumed her place next to Steve.

“Don’t be stupid, Clint. You’ll fall out of the tree.”

“Will not.”

A glare from Natasha, and Clint huffed. He pushed himself off Steve and settled in on his other side, albeit, less willingly than Natasha. He wiggled around, and Steve was starting to regret his role as a human pillow as more elbows dug into his side. Eventually, Clint stopped, sitting stiffly with the back of his head resting against Steve’s chest and his knees bent in front of him.

“We should try and figure out what she did to us.” Clint yawned, rubbing his eyes sleepily. “Come up with a plan maybe.”

“There will be plenty of time to talk about that tomorrow,” Steve said. “You both must be tired. Go to sleep, I’ll keep watch.”

Natasha assessed Steve carefully. She waited until he put his arm around her again, then relaxed and closed her eyes. Her hand drifted toward the pocket with the raptor claw. “Don’t call over any more dinosaurs.”

“Deal.”

Clint’s eyes blinked slowly, head bobbing as he fought to stay awake.

“Go ahead, Clint. You know we have a lot of walking tomorrow.” Steve hesitated before curling his other arm around Clint, more surprised than he was with Natasha when Clint relaxed. “Do you want me to hold on to your hearing aids for you?”

“Nah, they’re growing on me,” Clint said quietly. “And the dinos sound nice.”

Clint started to fall asleep again, and jolted awake. His left hand came up and rubbed lightly over the dinosaur on his hearing aid.

Steve frowned. “Something on your mind?”

“Yeah.” Clint dropped his hand, picking at his pants. He leaned back and tilted his head to look up at Steve. “What do you call a blind dinosaur?”

Steve smiled. “I don’t know. What do you call a blind dinosaur?”

“A Do-You-Think-He-Saur-Us.”

Steve chuckled. “Good one.”

“What do you call-“

Natasha’s hand reached out and grabbed Clint’s wrist, fingers resting above his pulse point, cutting him off. Her fingers briefly tapped against the inside of his wrist. “Go to sleep, Clint.”

They were both asleep within minutes; the Brachiosauruses’ lullaby tapering off as a blanket of darkness fell around them. Steve stayed awake as long as he could until the warmth and soft whispers of Clint and Natasha breathing lulled him to sleep too.


	5. A Silence Most Unsettling

“Fury?” Bruce asked in astonishment.

“Excuse me?”

“Ah, Doctor Banner, let me introduce you to Mr. Ray Arnold. He is one of our computer specialists,” Hammond said. “As you may have noticed there has been a glitch. Unfortunately, Dennis Nedry, one of our employees appears to have…tampered with our computer system.”

He introduced Bruce to a man in a white lab coat who looked exactly like a young Director Fury. The man took a drag of his cigarette and looked at Bruce curiously as he shook Bruce’s hand.

Not Fury then, Bruce decided as the man rattled off technical information about the disabled security system. Bruce’s anxiety rose as it became clear security wouldn’t magically start working anytime soon.

“John, I can’t get Jurassic Park running again without Dennis Nedry,” Mr. Arnold said.

Hammond’s face fell and he turned to Muldoon with a grave expression. “Robert, I wonder if you would be good enough to take out a guest jeep and bring back my grandchildren,” he said.

Muldoon nodded, efficiently moving around the room to gather supplies.

“I’ll join you,” Bruce said, pulling on a yellow rain jacket. Sooner than Bruce would have liked, he was following Muldoon outside. The two hopped into a jeep and sped toward the T-Rex paddock, Bruce’s eyes peeled for movement. Steve warned him the T-Rex would be loose, but Bruce hadn’t realized until they approached the vacant vehicle and damaged fences just how unsettling that thought would be.

Knowing there was something waiting in the dark, and unable to see it.

They skidded to a stop, and Bruce burst from the passenger seat. His flashlight slashed through the air from one spot to the next, pausing where the other car should have been.

“Tony! Steve!” Bruce yelled. “Natasha! Clint! Is anybody here?”

The flashlight beam caught on the debris of a wrecked building. A foot sticking out from under the rubble caught Bruce’s attention as he drew closer, and Bruce blanched at the lack of an accompanying body.

“I think this is Gennaro,” Muldoon muttered, his own flashlight glinting off a wristwatch several feet away.

An echoing roar sent a shiver down Bruce’s spine. He backed away and moved his flashlight across the trees. “Is it ahead of us?”

“It could be anywhere,” Muldoon said. “With the fences down, it can wander in and out of any paddock it likes.”

A groan caught their attention. The debris shifted to their right. Bruce rushed over to find Tony slowly regaining consciousness. Bruce gently removed the remaining debris, revealing a tourniquet around Tony’s leg. The ugly gash below it sluggishly oozed blood.

“We need to move him,” Bruce said. “He can’t walk on this leg.”

The T-Rex suddenly roared again, the sound closer than it was before.

“Definitely, move him,” Tony said, pushing himself upright. “I don’t think I can take another dinosaur rodeo.”

Between Bruce and Muldoon, they managed to get Tony situated in the back of the jeep.

“The jeep went over the wall,” Tony gritted out. “You better check to make sure they’re not there.”

“Yeah, okay. Sit tight.” Bruce said.

“Can’t do anything else,” Tony said. He tried to laugh, and it came out as a groan.

Bruce nodded and ran after Muldoon toward the T-Rex enclosure. Muldoon led them to a side entrance and the two raced along the wall back toward the damaged fence. Bruce felt fear pool in his stomach when he saw the flipped jeep and ran faster.

“Steve! Natasha! Clint!”

Except there was no one there.

Bruce’s knees were shaky, shock threatening to cripple him on the spot. He nearly collapsed with relief when he saw three pairs of footprints walking away from the site. 

“We’ve got to move,” Muldoon urged as the snap of breaking branches grew louder.

The race back to the jeep seemed to take twice as long. Feet slipping in the mud, and out of breath, Bruce saw Tony frantically waving them down.

“Come on, come on! We’ve got to get out of here right now!” Tony yelled. “Go! We’ve got to go!”

They were too late.

The door had hardly closed behind Bruce when Muldoon floored the gas. The jeep rocketed forward just as T-Rex tore into the clearing.

Muldoon changed gears, pushing the vehicle harder.

The T-Rex was still gaining on them.

“Go faster!” Tony yelled.

Bruce swore as the dinosaur loomed over them. Tony’s shoulder rammed into Bruce as Tony pushed himself roughly into the front seat, but Bruce was too focused on the low hanging tree sitting directly in their path to notice.

“Look out!” Bruce screamed.

The three of them ducked just in time for the branch to rip off the windshield. Glass rained down on them, the T-Rex suddenly level with the car.

The T-Rex rammed its leathery head against the side of the jeep, jolting them violently. It’s angry roar drowned out their screams as they cowered away.

By some miracle, Tony managed to reach around and shift the car into a higher gear.

Maybe it was the higher speed. Maybe the T-Rex was tired from the sprint. Either way, the distance between the jeep and T-Rex finally increased until the dinosaur appeared to give up and sauntered away. They all breathed a sigh of relief.

“Thank god that is the last dinosaur I see,” Tony muttered. He collapsed against the seat and exhaled sharply. “Good luck to you, Bruce, but I am done with Sharptooths.”

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Bruce tended to Tony’s wounds as best as he could when they rejoined Hammond and Mr. Arnold at the visitor’s center, placing a dressing and splint around Tony’s injured leg before giving him a dose of morphine and letting him drift off into a medicated sleep. After several minutes of quiet discussion, they decided it would be best to get some sleep and reconvene early in the morning. It was too dangerous to send anyone out looking for the others, and the island was too big.

They bunkered down in different areas of the main computer room. Bruce had taken a chair next to Tony and tried to sleep, but anytime he started to drift off, his eyes began playing tricks on him. Shadows seemed to move in every corner of the room, jerking him awake, mind screaming that something had managed to get inside.

Except there was nothing there.

Bruce compensated for his lack of sleep by busying himself looking over Tony, confirming he was still asleep and comfortable.

The few times he was able to doze, he had nightmares about the T-Rex. Its head would loom menacingly over Bruce. Sometimes it would knock Bruce out of the vehicle, and Bruce would watch the others drive off without him. The T-Rex would crush him under a large scaly foot, pinning him in place, and blood would drip horrifyingly from its teeth.

Bruce always woke up before the actual eating part. And after the third time, he decided it was best if he just stayed awake. He watched the minutes tick by on the wall clock, praying that dawn would come soon and the day would pass quickly.

It was almost eight when the others started to move: first Muldoon, then Hammond. Mr. Arnold woke up soon after and immediately started fiddling with the computer systems, mumbling under his breath in frustration. Eventually, Tony propped himself up against several blankets and quietly watched the others argue.

Needing to do something with his hands, Bruce decided to change Tony’s bandages. “Mr. Arnold could be Director Fury’s twin, am I right?” Bruce said.

Tony blinked, tired eyes refocusing on the man in question and stared blankly. “Huh,” he said. “I don’t see the resemblance.”

Bruce chuckled, thinking that Tony was making a joke, but the serious expression on Tony’s face caught him off guard. “Are you serious?” Bruce stuttered. “He looks-“

“No, no, no, that’s crazy! You’re out of your mind,” Mr. Arnold’s raised voice interrupted their conversation. “We absolutely cannot shut down the entire system!”

“What would shutting down the system mean?” Bruce finished the wound dressing and turned his full attention to the others.

“We’re talking about a calculated risk, which is about the only option left to us.” Hammond said. “We will never find the command that Nedry used to disable security and communication. He’s covered his tracks far too well. And I think it’s obvious now that he’s not coming back. So shutting down the entire system- “

“You can get somebody else, because I won’t do it.”

“Shutting down the system is the only way to wipe out everything that he did.” Hammond paced around the room. “Now, as I understand it, all the systems will then come back on to their original start-up mode, correct?”

“Theoretically, yes. But we’ve never shut down the entire system before. It may not come back on at all.”

“Is there anything you can do to get it back?” Bruce whispered to Tony while Hammond argued with Muldoon over a lysine contingency.

“If I had the time, sure.” Tony replied. He winced and shifted position. “But that’s not how this works, remember? We’ve got to let them disable the entire system.”

“People are dying,” Hammond appealed. His voice wavered; his gaze locked imploringly on Mr. Arnold as he limped over to stand in front of him. “Will you please shut down the system?”

Mr. Arnold took a long drag of his cigarette and nodded. Slowly, he grabbed a set of keys from the desk and headed over to the main controls. His hand hesitated before starting to turn off the switches. First the computers went black with a static hiss. Then the lights flickered off.

A resigned click sounded through the darkness, and the eerie beam of Muldoon’s flashlight landed on Mr. Arnold’s wary face.

“Hold onto your butts,” Mr. Arnold said.

Everyone held their breath as Mr. Arnold flipped the main switch.

A small insistent beep chimed from the computer as Mr. Arnold walked over to examine it.

“It’s okay. Look. See that?” he said. Mr. Arnold smiled in relief. “It’s on. It worked.”

“But everything’s still off.” Bruce stated.

“Maybe the shutdown tripped the circuit breakers. All we have to do is turn them back on, reboot a few systems…telephones, security doors, half a dozen others…but it worked,” Mr. Arnold said confidently. “System’s ready.”

“Where are the breakers?” Muldoon asked.

“Maintenance shed, the other side of the compound.” Mr. Arnold was already moving toward the door. “Three minutes, I can have the power back on in the entire park.”

Bruce helped Tony to his feet and they walked to the more secure emergency bunker while Mr. Arnold packed supplies and left.

“You’d think knowing they’re movie characters would make letting them die feel less conniving,” Tony said. “I’ll give it to whoever did this, they made it feel real.”

“It doesn’t feel good,” Bruce agreed.

“It feels shitty, Bruce.” They reached the emergency bunker and Tony settled down around several blueprints, thumbing through them idly. “You should take a seat and rest. You didn’t sleep much and you’re going to be doing a lot of running.”

“How do you know I didn’t sleep?”

Tony stared at Bruce, the dark smudges under Tony’s eyes standing out. “Takes one to know one.”

Bruce took a seat, his knee bouncing. He tried to meditate. He couldn’t. His mind felt like it was simultaneously racing and obnoxiously empty. Frustrated at not being able to calm himself, Bruce realized with a pang that he felt unbalanced without the Hulk lurking and making noise in his head. Everything was disturbingly quiet.

“How long has it been?” Tony asked eventually.

“Twenty minutes,” Muldoon replied.

“He should have been back by now,” Bruce muttered. He looked to Hammond who had a sullen look on his face. “Something’s wrong. Something’s happened.”

“This is just a delay,” Hammond said.

“No, something’s wrong,” Bruce said. He swallowed hard and stood up, starting to pace. He reminded himself that Steve, Natasha, and Clint were still out in the park and that they were relying on him. “I’m going to go get the power back on.”

“You can’t just stroll down the road,” Muldoon said, already heading for the weapon’s cache. “I’m going with you.”

Muldoon opened the cabinet and pulled out a shotgun, prepping it with a couple of rounds while Hammond busied himself grabbing blueprints for the power station. Hammond set them out next to Tony and tapped them nervously.

“Now, this isn’t going to be like switching on the kitchen light, but I think I can follow this and talk you through it,” Hammond said.

Tony pulled the blueprints closer to himself, ignoring Hammond’s protests, and pointed to a shelf of walkie talkies. “No offense, Hammond, but this is my specialty. Hand me a walkie talkie, Bruce. I’ll get you through this.”

Bruce nodded, plucking two walkie talkies from the shelf, and handed one to Tony. They switched them to the same frequency, and with a short nod, Bruce followed Muldoon out of the emergency bunker.

Bruce’s stomach dropped when they passed the raptor enclosure on their way to the power station and saw the stiff wire bars snapped and bent outward. Bruce knew it was going to happen, but seeing the broken cage and Muldoon’s cautious, almost fearful, gaze as he examined their tracks that made Bruce’s blood run cold.

They continued through the jungle, freezing at the sound of every branch breaking and every rustle of leaves. Bruce kept behind Muldoon, feeling exposed and inadequate. Even though he knew he shouldn’t, Bruce breathed a sigh of relief when the shed came in view.

“We can make it to the shed,” Bruce said.

“No, we can’t.” Muldoon’s gaze fixed on a spot in the bushes, intense concentration written on his face. “We’re being hunted.”

“Oh, god.”

“It’s alright. Run. Towards the shed.” Muldoon didn’t move, but an excited gleam shined in his eyes. “I’ve got her.”

Bruce didn’t wait. He ran toward the shed as fast as he could, bolting through the open fence door, and not stopping until he was inside the shed and standing at the top of the stairs. He stood in the dark, his heart racing, and he felt utterly alone.

He didn’t bother calling for Mr. Arnold.

The man wouldn’t answer.

Bruce fumbled for the walkie talkie, and pulled on the associated headset with shaky hands. “Tony, I’m in.”

“Great. Go down the stairs. At the bottom, look up and you’re going to find a set of thick cables and pipes headed in the same direction,” Tony’s voice spoke over the line. “Those are the main cables. Follow them.”

“Okay.”

Bruce looked up and saw a set of thick black cables and pipes heading straight down a narrow walkway. A small fenced-in area with a fuse box labeled ‘high voltage’ came into view, and Bruce made a beeline for it. He opened the metal door and stared at the neat row of switches and priming system. “I’m here,” Bruce said.

Hammond’s voice replaced Tony’s over the walkie talkie. “Bruce, you can’t throw the main switch by hand. You’ve got to pump up the primer handle in order to get the charge. It’s large, flat, and gray.”

“Alright, I’ve got it.” Bruce grabbed the primer handle, surprised by the force it took to push the handle up in order to charge it. He raised the lever four times until it clicked and seemed to lose tension. “It’s charged. What next?”

“Under the words ‘contact position,’ there’s a round, green button which says ‘push to close.’” Hammond paused dramatically. “Push it.”

Bruce did.

All of a sudden, the switch board came to life. A column of placards listing locations in the park illuminated, and next to them, a corresponding series of green buttons glowed brightly. 

“The red buttons turn on the individual park systems,” Hammond added. “Switch ‘em on.”

Bruce wasted no time opening the glass casing next to the first placard and hitting the red button, watching the placard light up red as the green button faded back into the darkness. Steadily working his way down the column, he felt a sense of dread rising as he approached the last button. The red which had initially filled him with a sense of hope, now felt dangerous and foreboding.

He paused when he reached the last switch, his hand hovering over the red button of the perimeter fence.

Tony and Steve warned him what would happen when he pressed the button. In the movie, Ellie pressing the switch had electrocuted Tim and stopped his heart. Steve had promised he would get Clint off the fence before that could happen. He said it was a minor plot point, it didn’t have to happen, and he had spoken with such conviction that Bruce couldn’t help believing him.

Except it was different now that he was in the room, staring at the red button which felt more like a kill switch than a safety measure.

“Bruce?” Tony’s voice broke over the line again.

How important was the perimeter fence anyway? Surely, they had enough power to get the phones working and call in a helicopter.

“Bruce! Answer me!”

They didn’t need the perimeter fence. Did they?


	6. Over the Fence

Natasha had woken up tied to chairs, chained to walls, and on one particularly memorable occasion, in the basket of a drifting hot air balloon with a panicked Turkish couple, two high level Hydra operatives, and one highly confused and drugged Agent Coulson.

But somehow this was so much worse.

There was a dinosaur less than two feet away from her, eating from the tree she was currently sleeping in.

She pushed herself back onto the branch furthest away from the creature. A glance at Steve, and she saw that he was already awake and watching the dinosaur with an easy smile.

The jerk.

She was going to smack him if he had been the one to call it over.

“Get rid of it,” Natasha hissed.

“It’s okay. It’s not going to hurt us, Natasha. They’re gentle,” Steve said.

Natasha scoffed. She’d seen how ‘gentle’ dinosaurs were yesterday.

Clint was still asleep, nestled under Steve’s arm in the small space between Steve and the tree. He roused when Steve rubbed his shoulder, yawning tiredly before his eyes settled on the dinosaur and his mouth opened in shock. Clint quickly recovered, moving forward eagerly.

“Wow! This is awesome! Nat, get a load of her!” Clint said. He patted his hands on his knees, like he was trying to call a dog over. “C’mon! C’mon, girl!”

Steve pulled a leafy branch off the tree and held it out to the Brachiosaurus, practically crooning at it to take a bite. Clint was sitting on the edge of his seat, vibrating with excitement.

Natasha was certain she was the only sane person in this situation.

The Brachiosaurus watched with curious eyes, head tilting slightly. It let out a loud bellow and reached forward, trying to tug the branch out of Steve’s hands.

“Oh no you don’t,” Steve said, hanging on tight. He pulled on the branch and the dinosaur’s head moved closer with it, eventually deciding it would simply eat the food from Steve’s hand if he wasn’t going to give it up.

As soon as it had settled, both Clint and Steve reached out to touch it, petting its nose while it chewed the leaves. Clint and Steve both had dreamy looks on their face, like they were having the time of their lives. Clint didn’t even react when Steve rested his hand on Clint’s shoulder to keep Clint from losing his balance as Clint stretched out over the edge to get even closer.

It made Natasha smile a little.

“Tasha, come pet the dinosaur! You’re never going to get another chance to do this.”

Her smile dropped.

“I’d rather not.”

“Aw, come on,” Clint wheedled. “It’s not going to hurt you.”

“No.”

“Just think of it as kind of a big cow,” Steve tried.

Natasha glared at him, letting him know she still wasn’t happy at him for calling over a dinosaur when he’d promised not to do so. Steve rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly and dropped the subject.

“If you don’t, I’ll tell everyone you were too afraid to touch it.”

“Then it’ll be the last thing you do.”

“It would be worth it.” Clint turned to her with a smile, aiming for the same wide-eyed innocence he’d used yesterday, and missing the mark. “Nobody else has ever gotten to touch living dinosaurs. Live a little.”

“They’re movie dinosaurs. They’re not real.”

“Close enough,” Clint said petulantly. He shrugged and returned his focus to the dinosaur, but Natasha could tell by the momentary flash on his face that her words had hurt.

Natasha sighed and reached out to touch the dinosaur. Her hand was inches away from its wrinkled skin when it pulled its head away. When Clint turned toward her with a confused look, she smiled and rolled her eyes.

Clint’s face lit up in anticipation.

“No, it’ll come back! You gotta go over to that branch and call it over.”

Steve looked like he was going to say something, but the words were knocked out of him with an ‘oomf’ when Clint flopped dramatically back against Steve’s chest. Clint gave Natasha a pleading look. “Please, Tasha? Do it for me?”

Natasha moved higher on the branch where Clint had pointed and outstretched her hand toward the Brachiosaurus. A very small part of her agreed with Clint that this was fascinating. It would be a shame to miss out on a chance to touch a dinosaur. Especially since a remark like that on the debriefing report would instantly be flagged, and she would have the pleasure of watching Director Fury trying to get a concise story out of Clint who would deliberately waste time describing each dinosaur in painstaking detail.

“Come on. Come over here!”

The Brachiosaurus faced Natasha. Its head pulled back briefly, nostrils twitching. Then it sneezed and Natasha was covered in a thin layer of snot from the top of her head all the way to her waist.

Scratch that. Clint was an asshole, and every part of her was filled with regret.

Clint was laughing so hard he nearly fell out of the tree. He caught his breath long enough to shout, “Bless you!” at the dinosaur.

“You knew that was going to happen,” Natasha accused.

“Consider it payback for Budapest.”

“You already got me back for that.” Natasha wiped some of the snot off her face and gave him a mischievous look. “You better watch your back, Barton.”

“I look forward to it, Romanoff.” Clint paused and wrinkled his nose. “You should go wash off. You’re starting to smell.”

Natasha glared at him, not altogether surprised when Clint stuck his tongue out at her. She made sure to wipe her hands off on him when she passed him and started climbing down the tree.

The water running from a drainage pipe had slowed to a small stream, but she was able to rinse off most of the snot. She expected Clint and Steve to be down by the time she finished, so it was a surprise when she saw they were still in the tree. She watched them for several minutes, only really able to see Steve’s face.

It was enough to tell her something was off.

Steve was upset. His brow was furrowed, lips tight, and even from the ground, she could see that his jaw was clenched. He started to say something and was clearly interrupted. Steve rubbed a hand over his face, his shoulders slumping, and Natasha knew in that moment that his resolve was crumbling. Clint’s stubbornness was likely wearing him down.

Steve said something and they both climbed down the tree, pretending like nothing had happened. Natasha trailed a few steps behind as they walked toward the visitor’s center. Steve had come a long way in hiding his thoughts since she’d first met him, however there was no mistaking that his smile was a little forced and Steve couldn’t help glancing at Clint out of the corner of his eye.

Clint was much more discreet. He seemed unconcerned, talking excitedly about the dinosaurs they were going to see. He questioned Steve what it was like to hold the baby velociraptor, and tried to convince Natasha that Jurassic Park was one of the best movies ever despite her poor introduction to it. When they stumbled across the egg shells in a nest, he engaged Steve in a fierce argument as to what species could be responsible for them.

If Natasha didn’t know him as well as she did, it would have been easy to take his enthusiasm at face value and not realize he was using it as a distraction.

She caught Clint’s eye and he dropped back to match her speed. “You said we run with dinosaurs in the valley, climb the fence, and make it to the visitor’s center where we escape the Velociraptors. Then we’re done, right?”

“Yep.”

“Are you leaving anything out?”

“I don’t think so.” Clint scrunched up his face in thought. “There’s some pretty delicious looking food we can eat before the Velociraptors.”

Natasha studied him. Nothing obvious showed on his face, but her stomach sank. “You’re not telling the full truth.”

“You’re right,” Clint said. He hung his head and took a deep breath. “Technically, only I eat delicious food. You eat a bunch of veggies.”

He patted her shoulder and ran ahead to catch up with Steve who had just reached the top of the first hill in the clearing.

“We’re getting close,” Steve said. “Just need to make it over that rise, and we’re a mile away.”

“Easy for you to say,” Clint muttered, lagging behind. “This body was not built for stamina.”

“Or the heat,” Natasha added. She wiped a hand over her forehead, wrinkling her nose at the slick layer of sweat.

Clint nodded. “Not to mention, I’m starving.”

“This will perk you up,” Steve said, gesturing for them to move closer.

“What are they?” Natasha asked suspiciously.

“Gallimimus. They’re herbivores, too. And they’re  _ always  _ running,” Clint said. He watched for a moment, then turned and tugged on Natasha’s arm as he started to run toward a large fallen log. “Which means we need to run, too, ‘cause they’re coming our way.”

Steve caught up to Clint and Natasha within seconds. He grabbed each of their hands, urging them forward as the herd of Gallimimus reached them. The Gallimimus towered above them, chirping as they swiftly flocked around them, leaping over the log ahead of them in a single bound. Steve helped Clint and Natasha over the log and covered them as they tucked themselves close.

As the last Gallimimus passed them, Steve, Natasha, and Clint crawled under a gap in the log and stared out over the other side. Steve felt Natasha stiffen next to him when the T-Rex emerged suddenly from the trees and attacked the Gallimimus.

The T-Rex grabbed one of the Gallimimus in its jaws and shook it roughly, holding the Gallimimus’s head down with one of its feet and tearing away a chunk of flesh.

“Wow.” Clint’s voice was awestruck and he stood up slightly to get a better view.

Steve looked a little nauseous, but couldn’t disagree that there was something entrancing about watching the T-Rex eat.

Natasha looked between the two of them with a long-suffering stare and yanked Clint away from the log. “Let’s go. I want to get out of here.”

“But, Tasha-“

“She’s right, Clint. We’ve got to move.”

They darted away into the tree cover, quickly putting distance between them and the T-Rex. But the further away they got, the less safe Natasha felt. There was a sudden tension in the air. Steve had slowed down, each step carefully measured, like he was trying to stall and didn’t know how to. Clint had determinedly taken the lead, guiding them up the hill toward the visitor’s center. He pushed them forward even when he was wheezing and his legs shook.

Steve made him stop to catch his breath before they reached the top of the hill, the thick wire fence looming ominously behind them.

All they had to do was make it through the visitor’s center.

Steve hopped onto the cement barrier in front of them, standing in front of the large danger sign with a stick in his hand. He tossed the stick at the fence, and the stick bounced harmlessly away. Steve shrugged, carefully approaching with his outstretched hands hovering over the cable. There was a pause, then he grabbed the thick cable and started shaking it with an exaggerated scream.

The way Steve’s muscles remained loose, the scream, and the distinct lack of smoke coming from where Steve’s hands touched the cable were all dead giveaways that the cable wasn’t currently electrified. That wasn’t even taking into account the dead warning lights sitting on the top of the fence and the missing hum of electricity.

Natasha crossed her arms, an unimpressed look on her face.

Steve turned and offered her a sheepish smile.

“Are you done?” Natasha asked.

“That was never going to work, but nice try,” Clint said, grinning up at Steve.

The T-Rex roared in the distance, and they all turned to stare out into the jungle.

“Let’s get going,” Steve said.

Natasha took a running start and gracefully pulled herself up onto the cement barrier. Steve leaned down and grabbed Clint’s hands, pulling him up since his finger barely cleared the lip of the cement at his current height.

“Race you to the other side, Nat!” Clint said as they started to climb the thirty-foot fence. “I’ll let you choose which movies we watch for the next month if you win.”

“Come on, guys. Don’t-“

“Deal.” Clint was the better climber between the two of them, but Natasha was a foot taller than him now. Her competitive streak couldn’t say no to the advantage, and needless to say, she was a little bitter after his trick with the Brachiosaurus. He was going to regret saying a month when she made him watch long biopics and foreign language films.

Natasha cleared the top of the fence easily. Steve kept pace with her as they descended the other side, Clint apparently having difficulty getting over the top. When she jumped off, her feet sent up little plumes of dust. She turned around to find Clint still gripping the fence twenty feet above her. The feeling of unease nagging her all morning turned into tangible concern.

“Clint, what are you doing?”

Natasha started to move toward the fence, intent on climbing back up to reach Clint, when Steve’s arm grasped her wrist and held her back.

“Natasha, wait-“

The alarms on the fence started ringing loudly, the blue warning light glinting in the sun as it flashed obnoxiously.

Clint should have been clambering down the fence to get out of harm’s way, but instead, he tightened his hold.

“Clint, get down from there!” Natasha tried to break out of Steve’s hold, and he refused to let her. “Get down now!”

“No! We can’t change the story!”

“To hell with the story. Get-”

“If I don’t get hurt, the story could change and Bruce could be eat-“

“Stop being stupid-“

“Natasha, calm down.” Steve grabbed Natasha’s other hand, and turned her away from Clint. His tone was annoyingly calm, but Natasha could hear the cracks where anxiousness slipped through. “We knew this was going to happen. I promise I’ll bring him back, okay?”

“Bring him back?” Natasha whispered. Her eyes widened and shot up to Clint, her heart pounding in her chest. “You mean he dies?” she exclaimed.

She broke free for only a second, running toward the fence, before Steve’s hand grabbed her around the arm again and pulled her back.

“You didn’t tell her!” Steve yelled at Clint.

“I didn’t think it would be useful! She would have tried to talk me out of it!”

“That was a horrible idea!” Natasha screamed at Clint. Steve forced her to focus back on him.

“That wire’s going to become electrified any minute, and Clint’s going to fly off of it,” Steve said quietly. “I can bring him back, I promise. But I can’t do that if you both get hurt.”

“You need to bring him back.”

“I will.”

Natasha nodded and backed away, jittery hands shielding her eyes from the sun so she could see Clint better. A small voice in her head sternly told her to get her emotions under control, but any semblance of reason slipped through her fingers with each second that ticked by and brought Clint’s heart closer to stopping.

The alarms shrilled louder, the cold blue light flashed faster, and Natasha wasn’t sure if it was her own heartbeat or Clint’s that she was hearing.

Then everything went quiet.

A solid red light beamed from the top of the fence.

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Bruce removed his finger from the button, hoping he had made the right decision. His eyes lingered on the red glow for only a second before he turned and bolted for the door, throwing it closed behind him as the lights flickered to life above him.

The Velociraptor burst from between the line of cables next to the fuse box, screeching angrily as it muscled its way through and launched itself at the door. Wire mesh bent under its powerful grip, snapping away from the door frame.

Bruce stumbled, his ankle twisting as he fell against a metal cabinet, and a dismembered arm dislodged from between the pipes next to him and onto the floor. Bruce imagined what would have happened if he hadn’t made it out in time, if those vicious jaws were tearing into him instead of the door.

The Velociraptor’s ferocious yellow eyes narrowed at Bruce as he escaped, limping his way through the compound. He didn’t stop until he was outside, sunlight beaming down on his back as he slammed the metal door closed behind him.

He flew toward the visitor’s center, ignoring the spike of pain in his ankle. Muldoon’s screams echoed in the air behind him.


	7. Clever Girl

“Clint!”

Natasha’s scream cut through the air as the electrified fence sparked with power and Clint was thrown off. Steve caught him, cushioning their fall as best as he could as they tumbled to the ground. Steve already knew Clint wouldn’t have a pulse and wouldn’t be breathing, but that didn’t stop Steve from checking and hoping Clint would.

Steve immediately started CPR, Natasha pacing anxiously next to them. Steve spared a glance at her between compressions, and his heart lurched at the tears tracking down her cheeks.

“No, Clint!” Steve said urgently.

Steve gave Clint a breath and restarted chest compressions. It shouldn’t be taking this long, Steve thought. Clint promised him it would work, that Steve would easily bring him back. It already felt like Steve had been doing this forever, anxiety bubbling in his chest with every second that passed and Clint remained de-

Unmoving. Clint wasn’t moving and Natasha was crying and none of this should have happened in the first place.

“Come back, Clint!”

Steve gave Clint another breath.

Clint jerked, sucked in a breath of air, then started to cough.

Steve smiled in relief.

“That’s good. You’re doing good, Clint. Just breathe.”

Steve picked Clint up and cradled him on his lap, Natasha kneeling on the ground next to them. She bent over as if her muscles couldn’t support her weight anymore. Her hand found its way to Clint’s neck, her shaky fingers settling over Clint’s pulse.

“Don’t you ever do that again,” Natasha whispered.

“I won’t,” Clint wheezed. One hand sluggishly reached up and pulled Natasha’s hand away from his neck, holding it loosely, his fingers resting on her pulse. “That sucked.”

They stayed like that for a couple of minutes. Then Natasha wiped her eyes and her shoulders stiffened, ready to push forward with the mission. Clint had been half asleep, and Steve regretfully gave him a little jostle and helped him sit up, Clint’s back resting against Steve’s chest, his suddenly fluffy hair tickling the bottom of Steve’s chin.

“What hurts?” Natasha asked.

“Everythin’, Tasha. I got electrocuted.”

Steve chuckled, stopping when Natasha glared sharply at him.

“What hurts?” she repeated firmly.

Clint sighed and held out his hands, nearly identical burn marks on his palms. “Left hearin’ aid’s fried, too. And no offense, Steve, but I think my leg landed wrong.”

“Anything else?”

“I’m tired.”

Natasha pulled a blue handkerchief out of Clint’s pocket and wrapped it around one hand while Steve pulled off the red handkerchief around his neck. He handed it over to her when she had finished, and she wrapped it around the other hand. She carefully tilted Clint’s head to the side, frowning at the irritated flesh and trail of blood coming from his left ear.

“In or out?” she asked.

“Out.”

Natasha pulled out the broken hearing aid and pocketed it. She felt expertly around his knee and nodded when she didn’t feel any broken bones.

“Figures you would be the one to die in the movie.” Natasha sat back, satisfied that Clint was going to be okay. “I knew you were hiding something from me.”

“Clever girl.”

“Never do that again.”

“I promise.” Clint smiled at her, faltering a little at her serious expression. “I’m sorry, Tasha. Really. I mean it.”

“Good.”

Natasha returned his smile and stood up. Clint tried to follow her, but Steve scooped him up and held him on his hip.

“No, Steve, I’m fine. I can walk,” Clint protested weakly. “Put me down.”

“You need to rest,” Steve said. He started walking toward the visitor’s center, Natasha falling into step beside him. “Give your body a break. Let me carry you for a bit.”

Steve could tell Clint wanted to argue, but there was no denying the fact that Clint was limp weight in his arms. His head rested on Steve’s shoulder, legs hanging loosely and swinging as Steve walked. Clint seemed to realize that fighting was useless, and after a few minutes, his arms tentatively came up and wrapped around Steve’s neck.

Some of the tension left Steve. Clint was a warm, comfortable weight in Steve’s arms. Steve could feel Clint’s breath on his shoulder and the rise and fall of his chest with each breath. He could feel Clint’s muscles twitch as Clint alternated between awake and dozing. And most importantly, if he focused hard enough, Steve could feel Clint’s steady heartbeat continuously telling Steve that his teammate was alive.

The trek to the visitor’s center was quick after that, and in what felt like no time at all, Steve was pushing open the doors to the empty lobby and leading them into the equally deserted dining room. Steve walked over to the largest table in the center of the room and carefully sat Clint down on the top of it. Clint looked like he was still waking up, his shoulders drooping forward and head hanging slightly.

“We’re almost done. I’m going to find Bruce then I’ll come back,” Steve said. “Natasha’s in charge until then, okay?”

Natasha nodded.

Steve had hoped that would get a rise out of Clint, and when Clint didn’t respond, Steve instead brushed a hand through Clint’s static-y hair and bent so he had a better view of his face. “What do you know, they were right,” Steve smiled. “Hair’s all sticking up. You really are like a human piece of toast.”

Clint smiled lightly back and Steve counted it as a win.

“I’ll be back soon. I promise,” Steve said. He hesitated at the door, sparing another glance back before walking through and practically sprinting back to the main entrance. “Almost done,” he muttered to himself.

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Okay…it looked bad.

Clint had been electrocuted before: a few times during hostage situations and once while plugging in the lights of a Christmas tree. And while he’d never actually died, Natasha was always quick to point out he’d come close to death enough times to know how it felt. What happened to him from the electric fence should have had him miserable, begging for pain killers, and hardly able to move.

But all things considered, Clint felt pretty good.

Clint’s hands ached where the skin had been burned, his body an odd combination of stiff joints and jelly-weak muscles that refused to hold him up. His pride had taken a hit when Steve carried him like a sleepy child too tired to walk to bed. Sure, he was exhausted. However, it wasn’t anything a good boost of adrenaline couldn’t power through.

He’d felt worse after falling into a dumpster that one time.

As soon as Steve left the room, Natasha stood in front of Clint and pinned him with a worried, angry look.

“I’m okay. Just needed a second.”

Natasha still looked doubtful, so to prove his point, Clint slid down from the table and shuffled over to the food table. He made a beeline for a chocolate cake topped with strawberries and white chocolate flowers, turning around to show it to Natasha with a big smile on his face.

“I told you it looked delicious. I won’t say anything if you wanna split the cake with me instead of eating veggies,” Clint said, mustering as much enthusiasm into his voice as he could. He made it back to the table and took a seat across from her, his legs swinging under the table, before holding out a fork to her. “C’mon, Nat. We both know you’ve got the world’s biggest sweet-tooth.”

Natasha’s mouth quirked up in an annoyed smirk as she accepted the fork and took a big bite of cake straight from the middle of it.

“Rude.”

“Serves you right,” Natasha said.

She took another bite, stealing the piece of strawberry from right under Clint’s fork. They ate the cake ravenously, only crumbs left on the plate. Clint had moved on to a slice of pie while Natasha was eating green jello. Natasha looked up and froze, jello jiggling on her spoon. She glared at a point over Clint’s shoulder, eyes narrowed reproachfully, and whispered, “It’s here.”

Clint turned and saw the shadow of a six-foot-tall Velociraptor pass over the wall to his right, its head bobbing up and down. It turned toward the dining room, sniffed, and continued walking.

Natasha silently moved out of her chair, and the second Clint stood up, she hooked her hands under his armpits and dragged him hurriedly toward the kitchen. The kitchen was brightly lit with four rows of long silver counters spanning almost the entire length of the kitchen and an open walk-in freezer on the far right. Natasha closed the kitchen door behind them. She waited for the lock to click before her hand flew out and shut off the lights one by one.

They ran to the end of the first counter, far away from the door, and crouched out of sight.

Several long minutes passed before they heard the first low purrs from the Velociraptor. Clint peeked around the corner of the counter and saw it staring in through the window. Its sharp yellow eye examined the kitchen, its lips curled back in a snarl before it let out a high-pitched chirp.

The sounds of a second raptor chirping back followed soon after, and Clint ducked back around the corner. He leaned closer to Natasha, making himself as small as possible. A shiver raced down his spine as the Velociraptor’s claws scrabbled for the door handle. With a soft whine, the door opened.

The Velociraptor let out a series of hisses as it shoved the door out of its way and stepped inside. In the reflection of the metal, Clint could see the Velociraptor raise its head before the dinosaur let out a loud series of grunts and the second Velociraptor pushed its way inside with a snarl.

“That way,” Clint whispered. He pointed ahead of them and Natasha led them around the second row of counters. They crawled on the floor back toward the exit, while the Velociraptors stalked them on the other side of the aisle, moving in the opposite direction.

Clint could see the Velociraptors through the gaps under the counter. Their claws tapped against the floor as they moved, a foreboding purr getting steadily closer and interrupted by harsh, quick calls as the Velociraptors talked to each other.

The leading Velociraptor paused to sniff the air, and Clint and Natasha froze. The dinosaur was in touching distance, so close that Clint could make out the small twitch of its powerful muscles rippling under the skin as it started to walk again.

Clint and Natasha had made it halfway toward the door when the Velociraptor’s powerful tail swept over the table and knocked off an assortment of pots and pans. A few of them hit Clint and Natasha as the metal clattered to the floor, and the two were just able to make it to the end of the counter and hide in front of the next one before the Velociraptor’s head poked through the open shelf of the table to investigate the noise.

The spoons hanging on a rack right behind them clinked softly, and Clint’s eyes flew to the traitorous ladle he knew would alert the Velociraptors to their presence. He attempted to grab it and buy them more time to escape.

It was like another jolt of electricity hit him, and instead of preventing it from falling, his arm knocked it off the hook.

It fell to the floor, ringing like a dinner bell.

One of the Velociraptors jumped on the table, both of the dinosaurs’ heads whipping around as they tracked the noise. As the dinosaurs moved toward them, Natasha crawled with incredible speed toward the opposite end of the counter again, keeping herself as far away as possible. Clint tried to follow, but only made it about a foot before he was stopped.

It was like someone had grabbed the back of his neck and was holding him in place. A vise like pressure tightening whenever he tried to move. Natasha waved him closer furiously, but all Clint could do was shake his head. He wanted to shout at her that it wasn’t his idea, but the words caught in his throat as a leathery nose appeared in his peripheral vision.

Thankfully, even if he hadn’t told Natasha about the fence, he described the kitchen scene in painstaking detail. Natasha had wasted no time to pick up a spoon and start banging it on the ground to distract the Velociraptors when it became clear Clint couldn’t follow.

The Velociraptors growled and turned toward the noise as Natasha hid herself inside an open cupboard built into the end of the table. Seeing her reflection, one of the Velocirapors let out a sound like a high-pitched scream. It crouched and charged forward with a snarl; its arms extended.

It opened its mouth as it reached the end of the counter and pounced.

Its head smacked against the silver metal on the counter opposite Natasha, distorting Natasha’s reflection. While the dazed dinosaur struggled to orient itself, Natasha pulled herself out of her hiding spot and crawled away.

Clint took the opportunity amongst the confusion to dash toward the open door of the walk-in freezer, half dragging his injured leg behind. The other Velociraptor caught on and gave chase with a loud screech.

Clint reached the freezer seconds ahead of it. His hands grasped the side of the shelf as his feet slipped on a layer of ice which had frozen on the floor. He managed to stop himself, but fell hard to the ground. Clint covered his head as the Velociraptor tore into the freezer after him and immediately lost its footing. The dinosaur crashed into the back of the freezer with an angry cry, sharp claws lashing out as it crashed to the floor, slicing through the air inches away from where Clint lay.

Feet struggling for purchase on the slick floor, Clint finally managed to stand upright. He ran for the door and with a scream, started to close it as the Velociraptor managed to find its own balance.

He nearly had the door closed when a large head with needle sharp teeth rammed into the other side and shoved its face through the narrow gap.

Natasha let out a scream like a banshee and appeared next to them. Her hand flashed through the air, and Clint saw something tear through skin on the Velociraptor’s snout. The Velociraptor let out a shriek, blood welling up from the gash, and it pulled its head back. They closed the door, Natasha putting the pin in the door handle to lock it closed with one hand, her other hand clutching the now bloody Velociraptor claw she had taken from Steve.

Clint leaned against the wall nearby, a hand over his jackhammering heart, struggling to catch his breath. He gasped when Natasha came up behind him and grabbed his arm, pulling him quickly across the kitchen and through the open door.

When he glanced back, the remaining Velociraptor was standing upright.

Its head followed them, amber eyes tracking their movement, a sardonic grin on its face as it bared its teeth.


	8. It's a Unix System

Steve found Bruce outside and followed him to the emergency bunker. They stayed just long enough for Steve to confirm Tony was alive and to grab weapons, then Steve led Bruce back to the dining room as fast as he could.

It took all of his willpower not to run ahead and leave Bruce behind in his haste to confirm Clint and Natasha had escaped the Velociraptors.

Steve breathed a sigh of relief when they walked through the doors and saw Clint and Natasha running toward them.

“There’s still one in the kitchen,” Natasha said, pointing.

“Control room,” Bruce said, backing away. He grabbed Natasha’s hand and started to run. “We’ve got to reboot the system.”

Steve took one look at Clint panting and picked him up again, chasing after the other two.

The control room’s door was already open when they reached it. Steve set Clint down, and before Bruce could make a move toward the computer, Steve called him over.

“Natasha, Clint, boot up the door locks. Bruce, that raptor’s going to be here any second. I need you to help me hold this door closed.”

As if waiting for its cue, the Velociraptor appeared in the window of the door. Its breath fogged up the glass. The handle started to move. With a lurch, it popped open the door, unbalancing Steve. Steve’s weapon flew from his grip, falling to the floor as he struggled to push the door closed.

“Bruce, I can’t hold it by myself!”

Bruce snapped into action and helped Steve hold the door as the dinosaur forced it open several inches and tried to push its way inside.

Steve felt the gun knock against his foot where Clint or Natasha had slid it over, but he didn’t want to risk letting go of the door handle to grab it. Even with two people holding the door, the dinosaur was incredibly strong and sweat trickled down Steve’s neck from the exertion.

He vaguely heard Clint say, “It’s a UNIX system,” and Natasha’s reply of, “I don’t care,” as she sat down and started to comb through files, before the Velociraptor’s claws snaked around the edge of the door next to his own hand.

The claws forcefully retracted when Bruce pushed hard against the door, but the victory was short-lived, and they returned seconds later. Steve threw his shoulder against the door with all his might, and the Velociraptor shrieked. It retreated, the door slamming shut, and moments later, the door locks slid into place.

“Did it work?” Steve asked.

“Phones, computer systems… you name it, we’ve got it.” Natasha said.

Steve immediately picked up the phone and dialed the emergency bunker.

“Rogers?” Hammond asked fervently.

“Mr. Hammond, the phones are working,” Steve said.

“Are the children alright?” Hammond said quickly.

Steve smiled at the worried tone.

“They’re fine. Call the mainland and have them send in the helicopters.”

A large bang interrupted them. Steve dropped the phone receiver and turned toward the large glass window on one side of the control center. He raised the gun as the Velociraptor on the other side lined up and slammed against the glass again.

Steve pulled the trigger, three loud shots ringing out, cracks radiating out from the bullet holes in the glass. The Velociraptor darted away at the noise, but Steve had no doubts it would be back any second.

His gaze swept the room, zeroing in on a ladder propped against the far wall. Steve ran to it, and opened it. He yelled for the others to join him and ushered them up the ladder. Clint was the first up, and he pushed aside the metal grating of a ceiling vent, crawled inside, and helped the others to safety.

The Velociraptor crashed through the glass the second Steve made it into the vent. The sound of glass hitting the floor had hardly settled before Steve kicked the ladder down and they all started crawling toward what appeared to be a ventilation shaft. The metal tiles bent under their weight, but held.

Steve kept a close eye on Natasha, and it seemed Clint had the same idea. When the Velociraptor pushed its head up against the grating under Natasha, Steve was ready with a kick to the dinosaur’s head. Clint hastily grabbed Natasha’s arm to prevent her from falling.

The Velociraptor slipped and fell after the second kick, and for a terrifying moment, Natasha looked like she would crash through the hole with it. Clint’s muscles trembled, trying to hold her weight, his feet sliding forward despite his best efforts. Bruce caught Natasha’s other hand, helping to pull her up, and he yanked her leg out of reach as the Velociraptor jumped, its teeth gnashing through air only inches away from where her leg was.

They scrambled through the ventilation system and emerged in the main lobby next to several scaffolds overlooking the suspended bones of a Tyrannosaurus Rex. Steve helped them climb from one landing to the next. They reached the bones, a shrill cry to their right alerting them to yet another Velociraptor approaching from the top of the main staircase.

The dinosaur snarled, crouching to jump.

Natasha climbed onto the tail of the skeleton; Bruce clambered onto the neck. Steve hauled Clint onto the back hanging onto one side of the fossil’s ribs as the Velociraptor launched itself at them and clung to the opposite side. The wires holding the skeleton together broke with a snap, and the pieces started to spin wildly.

Steve lowered Clint as close to the ground as he could and dropped him. The bones holding Bruce and Natasha snapped and they tumbled to the ground. Steve held on for a second longer, the entire skeleton giving out around him as he fell on his back.

The growling surrounded them. The Velociraptor from before emerged from behind clear tarps on the other side of the lobby.

They were trapped.

Steve got to his feet and pulled Natasha and Clint behind him while keeping his eyes on one of the Velociraptors. He felt Bruce’s hands on the back of his shirt, forcing the younger two to stay in the center of the circle where they were protected.

Steve’s heart pounded in his chest as he stared at the predator in front of him. It crouched down with its tail held high in the air behind it for balance. Its eyes narrowed on its prey, snarling as it opened its mouth to display a full mouth of sharp, serrated teeth.

Steve couldn’t help flinching away when it pounced.

But he shouldn’t have worried; the T-Rex appeared out of nowhere, its jaws clamping around the Velociraptor’s body mid-strike. They could hear bones cracking as it whipped its head back and forth. The Velociraptor dropped from its jaws, dead.

The other Velociraptor gave a shrill, furious cry then launched itself at the T-Rex’s side, clamping onto the T-Rex’s neck with powerful teeth. 

“Steve, let’s go!”

Natasha’s shout brought him out of the moment, and Steve grabbed her hand, sprinting for the door. He held it open as Natasha flew past him, Bruce close behind dragging Clint.

The jeep carrying Hammond and Tony pulled up as soon as they were outside, and they wasted no time jumping into it and driving away.

Very little was said as they drove toward the helicopter, everyone breathing a sigh of relief when it came into view.

Bruce led Natasha over to the helicopter, and much to Clint’s chagrin, Hammond insisted on carrying him over while Steve helped Tony. Clint and Natasha were exhausted, leaning into Steve and asleep before the helicopter had even taken off.

Tony stared out the window with a dumbfounded look, for once seeming like he didn’t know what to say. Bruce shared a look with Steve and smiled, before his gaze was drawn back to Natasha and Clint. Steve glanced at them too, and he felt a swell of pride in his chest. He looked out at the water and found his own eyes closing shut.

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

It felt like Steve was being forcibly pulled from a deep sleep. There was an insistent tug of awareness forcing his mind to slog through the thick fog of exhaustion. The first thing he noticed was how heavy his body felt, like he had been weighed down, and his muscles didn’t quite remember how to work. As they slowly clicked back online, his brain decided to catch up, and he became aware of the monotonous tick of several monitoring machines droning on in the background.

Steve’s eyelids fluttered open, and he realized he was in one of SHIELD’s hospital rooms, the curtains drawn tight around his bed. Several other monitors which weren’t his own, beeped their own rhythm in the room also, and it was incentive enough for Steve to sit up and rub sleepily at his eyes. He blinked at the bright light, letting it chase away the beckoning darkness of sleep, and managed to swing his feet to one side of the bed.

The curtain abruptly swung open, and Steve smiled at what he saw.

Clint…adult Clint…was standing in front of him. He wore a pair of SHIELD issued sweatpants and a baggy t-shirt, a cowlick sticking straight up in the back of his hair. He bounced on his toes with nervous excitement.

“Oh good, you’re up,” Clint said. One hand came up to rub at the back of his neck, his fingers briefly pausing over his hearing aid. “This is gonna sound weird, but were we really all just in Jurassic Park? Or did I take one too many hits to the head?”

Steve was fully awake now and he jumped to his feet, ignoring Clint’s protest as he grabbed Clint’s hands and flipped them over to look for burn marks. He breathed a sigh when he didn’t see any, and collapsed back onto the bed, all of a sudden feeling weak at the knees.

Everybody was going to be fine.

“Yeah, it was real,” Steve said. He fell backward and stared at the ceiling. “I can’t believe we made it out.”

“That was awesome!” Clint said. He leaned into Steve’s eyeline, his eyes shining and a bright grin on his face. “We got to see dinosaurs, Steve! Real dinosaurs in Jurassic Park!”

“You almost died.”

Clint’s smile dropped a little, and he sat on the edge of Steve’s bed. “I almost die a lot. More than I think Natasha likes, but this was the first time I’ve gotten to touch a dinosaur. Imagine Fury’s face when I tell him I touched a Brachiosaurus. He’s gonna be so jealous.”

Steve turned to give Clint a dubious look and caught the mischievous look in his eye.

“It was pretty cool, wasn’t it?” Steve acquiesced.

“It was amazing!” Clint said. “We always said we wished we could see real dinosaurs, didn’t we?”

He stood up and patted Steve on the shoulder as he moved on to bother someone else.

“Amazing,” Steve repeated to himself.

As the shock started to wear off, and Steve heard Bruce, Tony, and Natasha’s voices sounding off throughout the room, Steve allowed himself to smile. 

Clint was right.

It was amazing.


	9. Chapter "Too-Long-To-Be-An-Epilogue" Epilogue

After the initial retelling to Director Fury, followed by two weeks of joking and poking fun at what had happened, the dinosaur craze had started to die down. It had been over a month since they’d been transported into the world of Jurassic Park. The Avengers had tracked down and successfully brought back the two responsible for it, and life had moved on.

The last couple of days, however, had been rough. Tony and Bruce had been working long hours in the lab, sorting through schematics they had found in a recent Hydra raid and making mock prototypes to try and figure out what Hydra was planning to do with it. Steve had been helping SHIELD train new recruits, and Clint and Natasha had been working a secretive mission out of the country.

Steve breathed a sigh of relief when the weekend came, and he finally had time off. He was sitting at the common floor’s kitchen counter, eating breakfast, a newspaper open in front of him. Tony had excused himself from the lab to get a cup of coffee, and the two were chatting when in walked a tired looking Natasha with a thoroughly exhausted Clint.

“Well look what the cat dragged in. You look terrible, Tweety,” Tony greeted.

Tony made to pass over the coffee pot and stopped after he caught Natasha shaking her head behind Clint. Clint reached out anyway and plucked the coffee out of Tony’s hand, snagging a cup from seemingly out of nowhere and pouring himself a full cup.

Natasha glared at Tony and pulled the cup away from Clint before he had a chance to drink any.

“Three days without sleep means no coffee until you get at least eight hours,” Natasha said. She poured it down the sink to both Clint and Tony’s chagrin and started rummaging through the cupboards for food.

“Aw, coffee, no,” Clint mumbled. He took a seat at the counter next to Steve, and dropped his head onto his folded arms.

“Three days?” Steve asked incredulously.

“Plus some. Sniper mission,” Natasha replied. “Somebody refused to tap out and let somebody else keep watch.”

“Well, somebody already had a cover built up and her absence would have sent up red flags,” Clint mumbled after a beat.

Natasha pushed a bowl of cereal across the counter and nudged Clint with it. “Eat,” she demanded.

Clint sat up and slowly started eating, looking like all of his energy was going into making sure the food made it from the bowl to his mouth. He seemed perfectly content ignoring the small talk going on around him. When he was done, he pushed the bowl aside and laid his head back down on the counter. “Happy?”

Natasha shrugged. She finished her own bowl of cereal and set the two dishes in the sink before rounding the counter and pulling Clint out of his seat. He swayed where he stood and let Natasha look him over while Steve and Tony watched with confusion.

They heard a door open and close loudly in the distance, and Clint stiffened. The archer’s eyes narrowed, his hand moving to touch the gun at his side, and it was obvious he was tracking the sounds of someone moving closer. Even when Thor rounded the corner with a jovial greeting, back at the Tower for the first time in months, Clint didn’t relax. His hand dropped from the gun, but his fingers twitched like all he wanted to do was hold it. His eyes followed Thor, an unmistakable edge in the way Clint held himself.

Natasha seemed disappointed.

“Let’s go for a run,” she told Clint. “I bet your legs could use a stretch after sitting on that ledge for so long.”

“Geez, why don’t you let the man sleep?” Tony gestured to Clint. “He looks like he’ll fall over at the slightest breeze.”

“Couldn’t sleep, even if I tried,” Clint answered. He yawned, joints cracking as he stretched. One hand sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck and he forced a smile on his face. “Hard to get out the ‘constant vigilance’ spy mindset once you’re stuck in it. Tasha’s just tryin’ to help.”

Natasha whisked him away without another word.

“I see not much has changed in my absence,” Thor said.

“Not really,” Steve said. “How are things on Asgard?”

“Quiet for now. Loki attempted an escape but was thwarted. Several small skirmishes on Svartalfheim emerged which we’ve had to address, but that has never been anything new.” Thor sat down in the seat Clint had recently vacated, and smiled. “And what of Midgard?”

Steve’s mind jumped straight to Jurassic Park for the first time in weeks, and it seemed Tony’s mind did much of the same.

“We were forced to play through the plot of Jurassic Park.” Tony took a drink of his coffee, and at Thor’s confused look, he elaborated. “It’s a movie about someone who builds a dinosaur park and the dinosaurs escape. Who would’ve thought that Steve would be our expert on the movie?”

“I have not seen the movie, yet it makes perfect sense to me,” Thor said, a twinkle in his eye. “After all, our good Captain is a dinosaur himself, is he not?”

Steve gaped. Tony nearly spit out his coffee and started laughing.

“Who told you to say that?”

“No one. Although I have heard Natasha making reference to it quite often.”

Steve was going to need to have a talk with Natasha.

“We all got turned into characters in the movie,” Steve said, trying to redirect the conversation. “The only way to get out was to re-enact the movie.”

“It sounds like a marvelous adventure!”

“Most of the time, sure.” A shudder ran down Steve’s spine when he remembered Clint and Natasha’s faces from under the car after the T-Rex attack. “But I nearly had a heart attack when Clint and Nat-“

“Hold it right there, Cap, don’t spoil the whole thing for him.” Tony had a gleam in his eye, an excited look on his face. He had pulled out a tablet and his fingers were already flying over the surface. “Why the hell would we tell him what happened when we can show him? JARVIS, buddy, I need you to cancel everybody’s plans for this evening. We’re having a team dinner followed by movie night so Thor can watch Jurassic Park and see what we went through.”

“As you wish, Sir.”

>>\--------> >>\------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\-------> >>\------->

Steve was a little surprised to walk into the common floor kitchen and find it already full of people and lively conversation. Then again, it was hard to say no to free pizza. Even Pepper had cleared her schedule to join them, her typical business attire exchanged for something more casual. The only two people missing were Clint and Natasha.

“Take a seat, Cap, and help yourself to pizza,” Tony called out to Steve. “I already told JARVIS to ring the dinner bell for Clint and Natasha, they should be here soon.”

Steve nodded his thanks and took a seat at the table. He grabbed a slice and joined Bruce and Thor in conversation. It was several minutes before Natasha and Clint slunk into the room.

Clint looked only slightly more rested than this morning. He tensed when he entered the room, stopping to take a headcount, before he caught sight of the pizza and his eyes lit up. He sat heavily in the open chair next to Tony and pulled an entire box toward himself. In an improvement from this morning, he attempted to show the bare minimum of interest in the small talk around him.

Natasha looked more like herself, and a fair deal more refreshed than her partner. As she was stacking her own plate high with food, Steve broke away from his current conversation and asked her how she was doing.

“I’m great. Nothing a little sleep and a good shower couldn’t fix,” she said with a smile.

“And how’s Clint?” Steve asked, quieter.

Natasha glanced at Clint who was listening to Thor talk about Asgard with a slightly glazed expression on his face. “He’s been worse. At least he didn’t come back with any broken bones this time.”

She didn’t seem inclined to elaborate. Instead, she stole a slice of pizza from Clint’s box, blocking him as he protested and tried to retaliate and steal a slice of pizza from her own plate.

Before Steve knew it, dinner was over. He and Bruce were cleaning up the dishes, Tony had wandered off somewhere with a promise to be right back, and Clint was struggling to pay attention to Natasha and Pepper’s discussion.

Steve nearly dropped the plate he was holding when he saw Tony return carrying two large boxes and several brightly colored bags.

“What are those, Tony?” Bruce asked warily, shuffling closer.

Tony placed everything on the table and smiled when everybody’s attention turned to him.

“I realized while we were talking to Thor this morning that we never had a chance to celebrate making it out of Jurassic Park alive. Statistically speaking, at least one of us should have died.” Tony picked up a pink bag and handed it to Bruce. “Congratulations on being one of the lucky few.”

Bruce cautiously accepted the bag and peeked inside, a blush immediately coloring his face.

“Come on, Bruce! Show everyone what you got!”

Bruce reluctantly reached into the bag and pulled out a pink dress shirt that looked almost exactly like the one he wore when he was Dr. Sattler.

There was a pause.

Then Clint doubled over and started laughing. He would have fallen out of the chair if Natasha hadn’t held him in place.

It was infectious. Giggles erupted around the table, and when Tony urged Bruce to try it on, Bruce only hesitated for a second. He took off his current dress shirt and pulled on the pink one, playing it up by twisting from side to side. Natasha wolf-whistled at him, and Bruce blushed again.

“But wait, there’s more!”

Bruce looked back in the bag, and pulled out a coffee cup with the words ‘Better Than A T-Rex’ printed on the front.

“You’re not wrong,” Bruce laughed, putting the cup in front of him.

“Thor, you weren’t part of the adventure so it won’t be as personalized, but I got you something, too.”

Thor opened the bag Tony handed him and pulled out a t-shirt with a picture of Mr. DNA printed on the front. “What an amusing creature,” Thor mused. Without any of the restraint Bruce showed, Thor pulled off his shirt and replaced it with the t-shirt. “I like it!”

Steve caught Thor’s eye and saw him wink before Tony shoved a bag into his line of sight and dropped it into his lap.

“Your turn, Cap.”

“Tony, you didn’t have to do this.”

“Open your present, Steve. You’re keeping the kids waiting.”

Steve spared a glance around the table and saw that everyone was watching to see what he would get.

Steve moved deliberately slowly, teasing them as he reached inside and pulled out a coffee cup. Over the green silhouette of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, in bold black letters, were written the words-

“World’s Best Papasaurus,” Natasha read aloud over his shoulder. She smirked and nudged Clint in the side. Clint snickered, looking at Natasha like she was a genius when she loudly whispered, “It’s because he’s a dinosaur.”

“Natasha!”

“Yes, Papasaurus?” She gave him an innocent look, head tilted to the side, and nudged his bag. “You should keep opening your gift.”

Steve gave her his best ‘we’ll talk later’ look and reached inside the bag again, surprised when his fingers touched soft fleece. He pulled out a large fleece blanket and stood up to let the image on the front of it be seen. He saw the triceratops first, and his heart swelled as he realized Tony remembered him saying they were his favorite. When everyone started laughing again, he looked down and realized that he had been photoshopped into the picture so it looked like Captain America was riding a Triceratops like a horse.

“I had that one specially made,” Tony said, a wild grin on his face.

“Jokes on you, Tony, because I love it,” Steve said. He wrapped the blanket around his shoulders and took a seat.

“Last but not least, you two get to open yours at the same time.”

“What about you?” Steve asked. “Didn’t you get yourself anything?”

“Oh, I bought myself the whole Ian Malcolm outfit, skinny black jeans and all.”

“Which is a nice gift for me, too,” Pepper added. “Especially when Tony does his laugh.”

“Not to mention, I never have to see another living dinosaur again.”

Steve thought Tony seemed nervous as he slid the two large boxes across the table.

Clint ripped off the dinosaur wrapping paper immediately, but clearly didn’t want to be the first one to open the box. He waited as Natasha meticulously unwrapped her present, and he let her open her box first, craning his head to see what she got.

A curious look crossed Natasha’s face as she reached in the box and pulled out a large stuffed animal in the shape of a Brachiosaurus.

Clint stared from Natasha to the Brachiosaurus then opened his own box and pulled out an equally large Tyrannosaurus Rex stuffed animal. He stared at it for a minute, fingers running over its soft fur, then without warning he shoved it at Natasha’s face with a roar sound.

Natasha jumped and shoved Clint away with one hand while holding the Brachiosaurus tighter with her other. “Clint!”

Clint actually did fall out of the chair this time, his feet propped on the seat while he laughed maniacally from the floor and tried to catch his breath.

Steve wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Two highly skilled, dangerous, and deadly master assassins…cuddling stuffed dinosaurs.

Steve saw Tony breathe a sigh of relief as he clapped his hands and helped Clint back to his feet. “Alright everybody, pajama time. You have twenty minutes to change before the movie starts. I expect all blankets and dinosaurs to be in attendance. Anyone who got a cup is on hot chocolate duty.”

“Really, Tony? You’re going to make Steve and I make hot chocolate?” Bruce asked.

“I don’t make the rules, I just enforce them. Besides, the hot chocolate is already made and spiked with cognac. All you have to do is put it in cups and bring it to the show.”

Tony winked, and Steve saw him pull Natasha aside and whisper something to her. She gave him a questioning look, and he said something else, a look of realization crossing her face and she nodded.

Steve put the thought aside, left and changed into sweatpants and a t-shirt, and made his way back with the blanket thrown over his shoulders. Bruce was already back in his chemistry themed pajamas and had pulled out several cups already.

Thor arrived just as they finished filling the cups, still wearing his Mr. DNA shirt, and he helped carry the hot chocolate into the movie room. Steve set down the cups he was carrying, placed his blanket on one of the couches, and turned to go get the last one still in the kitchen. As he turned around, he did a double take.

“They don’t look much like spies now, do they?” Tony asked from behind Steve, a smug smile on his face when Steve looked at him.

And no. They didn’t.

Steve was starting to get an inkling of Tony’s plan, and he had to admit, it was surprisingly clever. Because even though Clint and Natasha were two of SHIELD’s best, it was hard to believe that anyone could remotely be, or even feel, like a spy wearing a dinosaur pajama onesie and carrying a stuffed dinosaur.

“This is more like it. You look much more believable as dinosaurs than you did as kids,” Tony called out to them. “How do they fit?”

“They’re extremely comfortable,” Natasha said.

Natasha looked completely relaxed in the pink dinosaur onesie. She had the hood pulled up over her head, her braid poking out on one side, and her hands tucked into the pockets. Steve could see the head of her Brachiosaurus poking out under her chin where she had zipped it inside the onesie with her. She did a little pirouette on her fluffy white socks and the pink tail flared out behind her.

“That is adorable! Is it soft?” Pepper said. She walked forward and had Natasha do another twirl for her, waiting for permission before running her hands along the soft fabric on Natasha’s arm. “I’m so jealous.”

Steve chanced a glance at Clint who was apprehensively frozen near the doorway. He didn’t seem exactly comfortable in the purple dinosaur onesie he was wearing, what with the hood pushed off and the occasional fidget. His eyes flitted from person to person, fingers twisting the edges of his sleeves, and his dinosaur was squished tightly under his arm.

Which Steve was pretty sure was the exact opposite of what Tony wanted.

“Clint, come over here and let me see yours!”

It was also apparently the opposite of what Pepper wanted. Steve should have guessed the two of them would be in cahoots.

Clint resisted, but as stubborn as he could be, nobody could say no to Pepper Potts. He reluctantly stood next to Natasha and turned when the two women pestered him too. Steve thought he looked distressed when Natasha yanked the hood over his head and they both started cooing until Steve caught the hint of a smile on Clint’s face when he pulled the hood off again.

“You like it, right?” Pepper asked while Natasha went to get a drink of hot chocolate. “It’s comfortable?”

“It’s fine,” Clint said. He shrugged.

Pepper moved a critical eye over him, her eyes stopping at his sleeves. “It would be better if you didn’t have it all twisted. May I?”

Her hands hovered over the sleeve on one arm, and Clint looked taken aback. He looked around the room as if seeking help, but Thor and Bruce had already taken seats in the recliners, and Tony and Steve were pretending not to notice. When no one came, he nodded dumbly.

Pepper carefully straightened the sleeves and smoothed the fabric around his shoulders. She went behind him and fixed the fabric of the hood where it had bunched up, then stood in front of him with a smile. “Now-” She playfully moved the hood on and off of his blonde hair and asked, “Hood up or down?”

“Hood up!” Natasha cheered.

Pepper smiled, but waited for Clint to answer.

“Down, please.”

Pepper dropped the hood and daringly smoothed Clint’s hair with her hand. “It’s cute,” she repeated.

“You know, SHIELD agents aren’t supposed to be cute,” Clint said, raising an eyebrow at her.

“I don’t see any SHIELD logos around, do you?”

“There doesn’t have to be a SHIELD logo for there to be a SHIELD agent.”

“Maybe, but I don’t see any agents either. And I should know since I live with two of them,” Pepper argued with a smile. “All I see is an Asgardian, Steve Rogers, two scientists, and two  _ cute _ dinosaurs.”

Clint looked confounded, rooted in place while Pepper claimed one of the remaining two couches and curled up with Tony. Steve eventually took pity on him and asked him if he would join him in the kitchen to grab the last hot chocolate.

Clint nodded absentmindedly, casting a confused look at Natasha as he followed Steve. Steve puttered around a little while Clint jumped up and sat on the counter, a lost look on his face while he watched Steve and tried to collect his thoughts. Every now and then he’d twist the cuff of his pajamas, frown, then straighten it again.

“Everything okay, Clint?”

“Did Pepper really say I’m not a spy, I’m a dinosaur?”

“No.”

Clint looked relieved.

Steve picked up the Papasaurus mug and took a sip of hot chocolate. “She said you were a cute dinosaur.”

Clint’s brow furrowed, and he shook his head like he was trying to clear it. He dug his hands into his eyes and pulled them away, staring at the purple material of his pajamas. His hands dropped into his lap, shoulders sagging, and the dinosaur under his arm fell to the floor. He looked up at Steve with a defeated expression. “What the hell is going on?”

“What do you mean?”

Clint rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, and stared at his feet. “Pizza, movie night, acting like this is some kind of sleepover…Tony’s gifts,” Clint’s foot thumped hard against the cupboard and Steve realized this was what was really bothering him. “Natasha demanded we wear the pajamas.”

“They look-“

“Don’t you dare say cute.”

“I was going to say comfortable.” Steve picked up the dinosaur, running his fingers over the soft fabric and white felt teeth. “You said Natasha was trying to help you get out of a spy mindset so you could sleep, right? I’m guessing physical exhaustion is her usual strategy?”

Clint nodded.

“Does it help?”

Clint hesitated, shifting nervously. “Sometimes. To be honest, I think being around Nat helps more than the actual exercise.”

“I think Tony’s trying to help in his own way. The best way to get out of the spy mindset is to make you not feel like a spy, right?”

“We’re not kids, Steve.”

“No.” Steve smiled encouragingly. “But let’s face it, SHIELD wouldn’t even let you into the building dressed like this.”

“I look ridiculous.”

“That’s probably the point.” Steve said. Clint started twisting the sleeves of his pajamas again, and Steve nudged him to get his attention. He held out the stuffed dinosaur. “He’s not making fun of you.”

“Sure, he isn’t.“

Clint didn’t sound convinced, but he accepted the dinosaur back. His hands trembled as he held it in his lap, staring at it like it held one of the world’s greatest mysteries in its squishy center. Suddenly, his eyelids drooped, his hands slackened as he swayed and tipped forward. He caught himself at the last second, his legs smacking loudly against the cupboard as he jolted back into awareness. A flash of fear crossed his face as he scanned the kitchen.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, Clint? Are you okay?”

Clint’s mind took several seconds to catch up with his body, and he sighed heavily. “I’m exhausted.”

“Just come and enjoy the movie. Relax and get some sleep if you can.” Steve nudged Clint again, waiting until he made eye contact. “We’ll keep watch. I promise.”

Steve waited a few more seconds before heading back into the movie room, trusting Clint to find his own way when he was ready.

When he got back, Natasha was sitting in the corner of the remaining couch, Steve’s blanket open on her lap. He tried to sit down on the other side of the couch, but she hissed at him to move over. Steve’s look of confusion faded and a mischievous smile took his place when he sat next to her, and she whispered a plan in his ear.

Natasha ignored Clint when he walked into the room and hesitated. His eyes went straight to the empty seat and flicked to Natasha suspiciously before he settled himself on his side on the floor, head cushioned by his dinosaur.

“Finally! Let’s get this movie started!” Tony said as he had JARVIS lower the lights and start the movie.

The lights turned off, the opening credits casting a faint glow over the room.

Natasha elbowed Steve in the side.

“Why don’t you join us over here, Clint?” Steve said. “It’s got to be more comfortable than the floor.”

“I’m fine, thanks.”

“Are you sure? There’s plenty of space.”

Steve almost felt guilty at the way Clint went stock still and glanced backward at Steve and Natasha. Clint quickly turned fully in their direction when he saw Natasha standing up with a wicked grin.

“Natasha, no!”

He scurried away, but he was sluggish and Natasha had a head start. With far more effort than she’d needed the first time around, she hauled Clint up from the floor and dragged him toward the sofa. Steve couldn’t help smiling at the way their tails swished almost angrily back and forth as they struggled with each other.

“Goddammit, Natasha! Let me go!”

“Don’t be stupid, Clint,” Natasha said sweetly. She more or less threw Clint on Steve, and prepared for it this time, Steve wrapped his arms around Clint to hold him securely in place. In the few seconds it took for Clint to regain his bearings, Natasha had scooped up the stuffed T-Rex and shoved it back into Clint’s hands. “It’ll be just like old times.”

Clint mumbled something that sounded like ‘pushy’, and Steve remembered why it was a bad idea to come between the two of them when Clint’s elbow dug into his side. Clint pulled himself away from Steve and settled with his back against the sofa. His knees up to his chest, the dinosaur squished between. Clint rested his chin on its head and said, “I’d appreciate it if you quit manhandling me.”

A chuckle passed through the room and Natasha smugly made herself comfortable, her legs tossed over Steve’s lap, socked feet nudging Clint’s ankle.

They were fifteen minutes into the movie before Clint’s head started bobbing. His eyes struggled to stay open as Tony excitedly explained which movie character he, Steve, and Bruce were as they appeared on screen. Slumping sideways toward Steve, Clint settled propped half upright with his legs and arms pulled close into a tight ball. Steve thought it couldn’t be comfortable, but after several aborted attempts, Clint finally fell asleep.

It wasn’t until the T-Rex appeared onscreen that Clint shifted. His muscles twitched, and he turned further into the couch, mumbling incoherently. Steve could see Clint’s brow furrow uneasily, and he debated waking Clint up. When the T-Rex started to attack the jeep, Clint woke up on his own.

Clint jolted awake, eyes wide as saucers. With a dramatic gasp, he pushed himself away from the couch and rolled off with a loud thud. Steve quickly moved to check on him, only to see the very tips of Clint’s feet poking out from under the coffee table where he had hidden himself in his sleep deprived state.

“JARVIS,” Tony started, “Stop-”

Natasha shook her head and motioned for him to keep the movie going. 

Steve did his best to give them privacy, but he couldn’t help watching as Natasha slipped off the couch and laid on the floor beside the table.

“What was that?” Natasha whispered. 

“What d’you mean?”

“You’ve barricaded yourself under a coffee table.” Natasha rolled her eyes, her voice dropping lower. Steve just barely heard her ask,”... nightmares?”

“No, I heard-”

The T-Rex roared again in the background.

“Get to cover, Nat, the dinosa-” There was a thump and the coffee table shifted, followed by a soft hiss. “Ow.”

“Focus, Clint. There aren’t any dinosaurs. You’re overtired.” Hesitantly, she added softly, “Maybe you hallucinated it.”

“I swear I saw it, Nat. Its teeth were right in front of me.”

Natasha’s brow furrowed, then Steve saw a sudden spark of inspiration cross her face. She sat upright, surveying her surroundings, then snatched something and shoved it under the table. She said something too quiet for Steve to catch.

There was a beat of silence, then Clint started laughing.

Natasha popped up again with a triumphant smirk on her face. A few seconds later, Clint appeared beside her, leaning heavily against the couch.

“I’m an idiot,” Clint said, head falling backwards.

“You’re exhausted,” Natasha reiterated.

“Same thing.”

“Everything okay?” Steve asked.

In synchrony, they turned their heads back to look at him.

“Woke up, saw this, and thought it was real.” Clint held up the stuffed T-Rex, his eyes a little hazy as he laughed again. “I’m an idiot.”

“No, you’re not,” Steve said.

Clint snorted and turned back to the television. Steve frowned.

“Hey.” Clint’s head flopped on the couch cushion, and he stared at Steve tiredly. “You’re not an idiot.”

“Whatever you say, Cap.”

“Trust me on this,” Steve said. “I know stupid. I’ve watched Tony blow up his lab.”

“That was one time, Steve! And we knew it was a risk going in.”

Clint chuckled as Natasha pulled him to his feet, not even fighting when she deposited him once more against Steve’s side. She wedged herself behind Clint between him and the couch, her head resting on Steve’s shoulder.

“No argument this time?” Steve teased, adjusting his position so they were all more comfortable.

“Shut up, Steve,” Clint said. He threw the edge of Steve’s blanket toward Natasha, his arms tucking tight against his chest. “Watch the movie.”

Steve had flashbacks to sitting in the tree, listening to the Brachiosauruses. Natasha was once more a relaxed weight on his shoulder. Clint was tense where he rested against Steve’s side, fighting sleep, but he gave in the second Natasha snaked her arm around his chest and pulled him closer.

Their breathing evened out, and Steve carefully closed his arms around them. It must have been an odd sight to the others. Clint and Natasha weren’t overly affectionate on their best days, and catching them sleeping in their downtime was even rarer. A glance around the room told him nobody cared that Steve was effectively snuggling their resident spies, but Steve couldn’t help tucking the blanket around them protectively.

The room was quiet, and Steve felt his eyes starting to droop.

“Did this actually happen?” Thor asked quietly.

Steve focused on the screen and saw Dr. Grant catch Tim as he flew off the electrified fence. He subconsciously tightened his hold on Clint and Natasha. Bruce’s eyes shot to Steve like he’d forgotten all about the fence.

“Of course not,” Clint mumbled tiredly, Steve just barely stopping himself from jumping. “Do you think I’m stupid enough to let myself get electrocuted?”

“Yes,” Natasha answered. “The better question is, would I let Clint do something as stupid as electrocute himself for a movie?”

“Not in a million years,” Tony supplied.

“You’re damn right,” Natasha said. Maybe as a warning to Steve to stay quiet, she reached around Clint to Steve’s side and pulled him closer, sandwiching Clint more firmly in the middle. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to pull him out of danger.”

“So mean to me,” Clint said halfheartedly.

Before he could overthink it, Steve started running his fingers through Clint’s hair in a soothing, repetitive motion. “Go back to sleep. I’ll make sure they don’t say anything else about you,” Steve said.

“That’s favoritism, Steve,” Tony said. “What did Clint do to get on your good side?”

“He’s the only one who didn’t call me a dinosaur,” Steve replied. “Of course he’s the favorite.”

“Thanks, Steve.” Clint yawned, eyes drifting closed once more. 

“Clint would never disrespect dinosaurs like that,” Natasha added.

Steve chuckled and tucked the blanket around her tighter. This time, when they fell asleep, they stayed asleep. Steve once again found himself relaxing, warm and content. When the movie credits rolled, he looked around to see everyone looking equally relaxed.

“There are sequels,” Steve said quietly. “And a new franchise.”

“Queue it up, J,” Tony said.

Steve settled in, rested his chin on Natasha’s head, and closed his eyes as the movie started.


End file.
